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SAi:^T LOUIS: 



THE 



FUTURE 



BEAT CITY OF THE WORLD. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH A MAP. 



v^ 



BY L. IT. RBAVIS. 



Henceforth St. Louis must be viewed in the light of her future — her mightiness in the 
empire of the world — her sway in the rule of states and nations. 



x87 



PUBLISHED BY OKDER OF THE ST. LOUIS COUNTY COURT. 

1870. 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
L. U. EEAVIS, 
In the office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States in and for the 
Eastern District of Missouri. 






MISeOUTU UEMOCRAT PIUMINO UOt'SB. 



TO 

CAPTAIN JAMES B. EADS, 

THE MAN OF REAL GENIUS AND MARKED 
FIDELITY TO HIS FRIENDS, 
THE CITIZEN OF GENUINE PATRIOTISM AND RARE 
PUBLIC SPIRIT, 
THE MAN WORTHY OF HONOR BECAUSE 
SELF-MADE, 

THIS LITTLE WOEK, 

DEVOTED TO THE FUTURE OF A CITY WHOSE 

BEST HOPE IS IN SUCH MEN, 

IS DEDICATED BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACK 

Pr.opnETic Voices about St. Louis, -----------<> 

Fac Simile Letter oi-' the Hox. Horace Greeley aisout St. Louis, - - - 7 

The Future Great City — The Argument .---'.> 

"Water as ax important auxiliary to the growth of a great City, and the 

advantage possessed i?\' St. Louis for an inexhaustible supply, - - - 'P>2 
The Civil and Industrial Mission of the American People — the World's Com- 
merce AND Civilization, and the tendency of both toavard the Continent 
OF North America and the Future Great City, ------ 3;; 

America — Poetry, --..,--- .5.-, 

Population considered, ..--..-...--- .51'; 
Geographical, Geological, and Topographical situation of St. Louis, - - - (iO 
The Piailtvay System of St. Louis, -----------64 

[Missouri and her Resources, ------------ oh 

The ^Minerals of Missouri, -- - -75 

Productive Power of the Iron Interest of Missouri. ------ 87 

Mlssouri as a "Wine-producing State, - 89 

Great Bridge at St. Louis, and its use — when completed — to facilitate the 

future growth of the city, .---- ()4 

Closing Egotis.m, - - - 105 



To the Hono7-able the County Court of St. Louis County, State of Missouri: 



Gentlemen: The undersigned respectfully request that your honorable body make 
an appropriation for the publication and distribution of a new work by Mr. L, U. Reavis, 
entitled " St. Louis, the Future Great City of the World." Believing that our city is 
just entering upon a new era of commercial prosperity and material growth, unknown to 
her past liistory, we feel assured that, from the character and object of the work, it will, 
when published and circulated, add infinitely more to the material interests of St. Louis 
than the small sum required for its publication. 



Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 



D. A. January, 
Chas, H. Peck, 
Lee R. Shryock, 
Thos. J. Bartholow, 
"\Vm. J. Lewis, 
C. A. Newcomb, 
J. H. Terry, 
AV\[. A. Brawner, 
Elon G. Smith, 
Haskell & Co., 
Albert Todd, 
Scott, Collins, & Co., 
Geo. Todd, 
Silas Bent, 
Nathan H. Parker, 



Geo. Bain, 

Chas. Gibson, 
E. O. Stanard, 
Geo. p. Plant, 
Samuel Kkox, 
■\Vm. McKee, 
John S. Cavender, 
Ferd. Meyer, 
A. Siegel, 
Wm. Walsh, 
Jno. Baker, 
Robert Baker, 
L. H. Baker, 
Thos. Allen, 
E. W. Fox, 



Geo. H. Rea. 
Sam. a. Lowe. 
JosiAH Fogg, 
Thos. Huntington, 
Stilson Hutchins. 
Emil Preetorius, 
John Loughton, 31. D. 
Frederick Hill. 
John Mennie, 
G. W. Dreyer, 
Henry Shaw, 
D. Robert Barclay. 
Capt. James B. Eads. 
W. C. Taylor, 

B. R. BONNEU. 



The above petition was presented to the County Court of St. Louis by the following- 
gentlemen, prominent citizens of St. Louis, who presented themselves as a committee, 
asking the publication of the work: 

CAPT. JAMES. B. EADS, 
HON. SAMUEL KNOX, 
GEN. JOHN S. CAVENDER, 
HON. CHAS. GIBSON, 
CAPT. BAKTON ABLE, 
HON. J. H. TERRY, 
HON. JOSEPH PULLITZER. 
HON. D. ROBERT BARCLAT. 
WM. C. TAYLOR, Esq., 
JOHN JACKSON, Esq. 

The committee, having made their arguments in fiivor of the publication of tlie work, 
the Court voted as follows: 

JUDGE F. W. CRONENBOLD, in the Chair, voted aye. 
JOHN F. LONG 
THOMAS J. DAILY 

JAMES S. FARRAR " 

ROBERT C. ALLEN 
" THOMAS M. BRANNAN " 

CHRISTIAN CONRADES 

Making a unanimous vote of the Court in favor of the publication, and ordering 
ten thousand copies to be printed in English and five thousand in German. 



PEOPHETIC VOICES ABOUT ST. LOUIS. 



St. Louis, alone, would be an all-sufficient theme; for who can doubt that this prosperous metropolis 
is destined lo be one of the mighty centers of our mighty Republic ? — [ Chaules Sumneu. 

Fair St. Louis, the future Capital of the United States, and of the civilization of the Western 
Continent. — [ Jamks Pakton. 

New York Tribuxb, "» 

New York, February 4, 1870. / 

Drau Sir: I have twice seen St. Louis in the middle of winter. Nature made her the focus of a vast 

region, embodying a vast area of the most fertile soil on the globe. Man will soon accomplish her destiny 

by rendering lier the seat of an immense industry, the home of a far-reaching, ever-expanding commerce. 

Her gait is not so rapid as that of some of her western sisters, but she advances steadily and surely to 

her predestined station of first inland city on the globe. 

T TT T, T, ,,. Yours, HORACE GREELEY. 

L. U. Reavis, E&q., l\j[i$sou7i. 

I also remember that I am in the city of St. Louis — destined, ere long, to be the greatest city on the 
continent (renewed cheers ) ; the greatest central point between the East and the West, at once destined to 
be the entrepot and depot of all the internal commerce of the greatest and most prosperous country t!ie 
world has ever seen; connected soon with India by (he Paciac, and receiving the goods of China and 
Japan; draining, with its immense rivers centering here, the great Northwest, and opening into the Gulf 
tlirough the great river of this nation, the Father of Waters — the Mississippi. Whenever— and that time 
is not far distant — the internal commerce shall exceed our foreign commerce, then shall St. Louis take the 
very first rank among the cities of the nation. And that time, my friends, is much sooner than any one of 
us at the present time actually realizes. Suppose that it had been told you — any one of you here present, 
of middle age — within twenty years past, that within that time such a city should grow up here, with sucl'i 
a population as covers the teeming prairies of Illinois and Indiana, between this and the Ohio, who would 
have realized the prediction? And so the next quarter of a century shall sec a larger population west of 
the Mississippi than the last quarter of a century saw east of the Mississippi; and the city of St. Louis, 
from its central location, and through the vigor, the energy, the industry, and the enterprise of its 
inhabitants, shall become the very first city of the United States of America, now and hereafter destined 
to be the great Republican nation of the world. — [Extract from a speech delivered in St. Louis, October 1:5, 
18G6, by Gen. B. F. Butler. 

Now, sir, when I see this country, when I see its vastness and its almost illimitable extent; when I 
see the keen ej e of capital and business fastened with steady, interested gaze upon the trade of the West, 
and all our Eastern cities in hot rivalry are reaching out their iron arms to secure our trade; when I see 
the railroads that are centering here in St. Louis; when I see this city, with 60,000 miles of railroad com- 
munication and 1(X),000 miles of telegraphic comnuiiiicatiou; when I see that she stands at the head waters 
of navigation, exttndiug to the north 3,000 miles, and to the south 2,000 miles; and when I see that she 
stands in the center of the continent, as it were; when I see the population moving to the West in vast 
numbers; when I see emigration rolling toward the Pacific, and all through these temperate climes 1 hear 
the tramp of the iron horse, on his way to the Pacific Ocean; when I see towns and villages springing up 
iu every direction; when I see States forming into existence until the city of St. Louis becomes the center, 
as it were, of a hundred States, the center of the population and tlie commerce of this country — when I 
see all this, sir, I feel convinced that the seat of empire is to come this side of the AUeghanies; and why 
may not St. Louis be the future Capital of tlie United States of America? — [ JSa-frac/ from a speech of 
Sen-atok Yates. 

If it were asked whose anticipations of what has been done to advance civilization, for the past fifty 
years, have come nearest the truth — those of the sanguine and hopeful, or those of the cautious and 
fearful — must it not be answered tiuit none of the former class had been sanguine and hopeful enough to 
anticipate the full measure of human progress since the opening of the present century? May it not be the 
most sanguine and lioi)eful only, wlio, in anticipation, can attain a due estimation of the measure of future 
Change and improvement in the grand march of society and civilization westward over the continent? 

The general mind is faithless of what goes muclj beyond its own experience. It refuses to receive, 
or it receives with distrust, conclusions, however strongly sustained by facts and fiiir deductions, which 
go much beyond its ordinary range of thought. It is especially skeptical and intolerant toward the avowal 
of opinions, however well founded, which are sanguine of great future changes. It does not comprehend 
them, and therefore refuses to believe; but it sometimes goes further, and, without examination, scornfully 
rejects. To seek for tile truth is the projjor object of those who, from the past and presen*;, undertake to 
say what will be in the future, and, when the truth is found, to express it with as little reference to what 
will be thouglit of it as if putting forth the solution of a mathematical problem. — [ J. W . Scott. 



M.J/,>^,_ ,S^. f^ ^ii^ 

g,^^- ^?^, ; ^ (6=^-^^ ^U-iai -i^^^-^ 

. ^ .^^-^^X ^^ ^ ^0^ /^ ^^ 






ST. LOUIS, THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



Great cities grow up in nations as the mature offspring of well-directed civil 
and commercial agencies, and in their natural development they become vital 
organs in the world's government and civilization, performing the highest 
functions of human life on the earth. They grow up where human faculties 
and natural advantages are most effective. They have a part in the grand 
march of the human race, peculiar to themselves, in marking the progress of 
mankind in arts, commerce and civilization ; and they embellish history with 
its richest pages of learning, and impress on the mind of the scholar and the 
student the profoundest lessons of the rise and fall of nations. They have 
formed in all ages the great centers of industrial and intellectual life, from 
which mighty outgrowths of civilization have expanded. In short, they are 
the mightiest works of man. And whether we view them wrapped in the 
flames of the conqueror, and surrounded with millions of earnest hearts, yield- 
ing in despair to the wreck of fortune and life at the fading away of expiring 
glory, or the sinking of a nation into oblivion ; or whether we contemplate them 
in the full vigor of prosperity, with steeples piercing the very heavens, with 
royal palaces, gilded halls, and rich displays of wealth and learning, they are 
ever wonderful objects of man's creation, ever impressing with profoundest 
conviction lessons of human greatness and human glory. In their greatness 
they have been able to wrestle with all human time. We have only to go with 
Volney through the Euins of Empire; to trace the climbing path of man, from 
his first appearance on the fields of history to the present day, by the evidences 
we find along his pathway in the ruins of the great cities, the creation of his 
own hands. The lessons of magnitude and durability which great cities teach 
may be more clearly realized in the following eloquent passage from a lecture 
of Louis Kossuth, delivered in Kew York City : 

"How wonderful I "What a present and what a future yet ! Future ? Then 
let me stop at this mysterious word, the veil of unrevealed eternity. 

" The shadow of that dark word passed across my mind, and, amid the bustle 
of this gigantic bee-hive, there I stood with meditation alone. 

" And the spirit of the immovable past rose before my eyes, unfolding the 
picture-rolls of vanished greatness, and of the fragility of human things. 

"And among their dissolving views there I saw the scorched soil of Africa, 
and upon that soil, Thebes, with its hundred gates, more splendid than the most 
splendid of all the existing cities of the world — Thebes, the pride of old Egypt, 
the first metropolis of arts and sciences, and the mysterious cradle of so many 
doctrines, \vhich still rule mankind in different shapes, though it has long for- 
gotten their source. 



10 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

''There I saw Sj'ria, with its hundred cities; ovcrj^ city a nation, and every 
nation with an empire's might. Baalbec, with its gigantic temples, the very 
ruins of Avhich baffle the imagination of man, as they stand like mountains of 
carved rocks in tbe desert, where, for hundreds of miles, not a stone is to be 
found, and no river flows, offering its tolerant back to carry a mountain's 
weight upon. And yet there they stood, those gigantic ruins; and as we 
glance at them with astonishment, though we have mastered the mysterious 
elements of natui-o, and know the combination of levers, and how to catch the 
lightning, and how to command the power of steam and compressed air, and 
how to write with the burning fluid out of which the thunderbolt is forged, and 
how to dive to the bottom of the ocean, and how to rise up to the sky, cities 
like New York dwindle to the modest proportion of a child's toy, so that we 
are tempted to take the nice little thing up on the nail of our thumb, as Micro- 
raegas did with the man of wax. 

"Though we know all this, and many things else, still looking at the times of 
Baalbec, we cannot forbear to ask what people of giants was that which could 
do what neither the puny efforts of our skill, nor the ravaging hand of unre- 
lenting time, can undo through thousands of years. 

'•'And then I saw the dissolving picture of Nineveh, with its ramparts now 
covei'ed with mountains of sand, where Layard is digging up colossal winged 
bulls, large as a mountain, and yet carved with the nicety of a cameo ; and 
then Babylon, with its beautiful walls; and Jerusalem, with its unequalled 
temples; Tyrus, with its countless fleets; Arad, with its wharves; and Sidon, 
with its labyrinth of work-shops and factories; and Ascalon, and Gaza, and 
Beyrout, and, further off, Persepolis, with its world of palaces." 

The first great cities of the world were built by a race of men inferior to 
those which now form the dominant civilization of the earth, j'ot there are 
many ruins of superior mold, both in greatness and mechanical skill, than 
belong to the cities of our own day, as found in the marble solitudes of Palmyra 
and the sand-buried cities of Egypt. It is true, however, that ancient grandeur 
grew out of a system of idolatry and serf-labor, controlled by a selfish despot or 
a blind priesthood, "which compelled a useless display of greatness in most 
public improvements. In our age, labor is directed more by practical wisdom 
than of old^ which creates the iiseful more than the ornamental; hence we have 
tho Crj'stal Palace instead of the Pyramids. 

But, leaving the ancient cities, we are led to inquire, " Where will grow up 
the future great city of the world?" At the very outset of this inquiry it is 
neccssar}' to clearly comprehend a few underlying facts connected with the 
cities of the past and those now in existence, and note the influence of the 
more important arts and sciences that bear upon man's present intellectual and 
industrial interests, and, if possible, to determine tho tendency of the world's 
civilization toward the unfolding future. 

The first great fact we meet with is, that tho inevitable tendenc}" of man 
upon the earth has been to make the circuit of the globe by going westward, 
within an isothermal belt or zodiac of equal temperature, which encircles the 
earth in the north temperate zone. Within this belt has already been embraced 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 11 

more than three-fourths of tho world's civilization, and now about 850,000,000 
people. It is along this belt that the processions of nations, in time, has 
moved forward, with reason and order, "in a pre-determined, a solemn march, 
in which all have joined; over moving and ever rcsistlessly advancing, encoun- 
tering and enduring an inevitable succession of events." 

"It is along this axis of the isothermal temperate zone of the northern 
hemisphere that revealed civilization makes the circuit of the globe. Here 
the continents expand, the oceans contract. This zone contains the zodiac of 
empires. Along its axis, at distances scarcel}^ varying one hundred leagues, 
appear the groat cities of the world, from Pekin in China to St. Louis in 
America. 

"During antiquity this zodiac was narrow; it never expanded beyond the 
Xorth African shore, nor beyond tho Pontic sea, the Danube, and tho Ilhino. 
Along this narrow belt civilization planted its system, from oriental Asia to 
the western extremity of Europe, with more or less perfect development. 
Modern times have recentlj- seen it widen to embrace the region of the Baltic 
sea. In America it starts with the broad front from Cuba to Hudson's Bay- 
As in all previous times, it advances along a line central to these extremes, in 
the densest form, and with tho greatest celerity. Here are chief cities of intel- 
ligence and power, the greatest intensity of energy and progress. Science has 
recently very perfectl}^ established, by observation, this axis of the isothermal 
temperate zone. It reveals to the world this shining fact, that along it civili- 
zation has traveled, as by an inevitable instinct of nature, siuce creation's 
dawn. From this line has radiated intelligence of mind to tho North and to 
the South, and toward it all people have struggled to converge. Thus, in 
harmony with the supreme order of nature, is the mind of man instinctively 
adjusted to the revolutions of tho sun, and tempered by its heat." 

It is a noteworthy observation of Dr. Draper, in his work on the Civil War in 
America, that within a zone a few degrees wide, having for its axis the Januaiy 
isothermal line of forty-one degrees, all great men in Europe and Asia have 
appeared. lie might have added, with equal truth, that within tho same zone 
have existed all those great cities which have exerted a powerful influence upon 
the world's history, as centers of civilization and intellectual progress. Tho 
same inexorable but subtle law of climate which makes greatness in the indi- 
vidual unattainable in a temperature hotter or colder than a certain golden 
mean, affects in like manner, with even more certainty, the development of 
those concentrations of the intellect of man which we find in great cities. 
If the temperature is too cold, the sluggish torpor of the intellectual and 
phj-sical nature precludes the highest development; if tho temperature i^-. 
too hot, the fier}' fickleness of nature, which Avarm climates produce in the 
individual, is typical of the swift and tropical growth, and sudden and severe 
decay and decline, of cities exposed to the same all-powerful influence. 
Beyond that zone of moderate temperature, the human life resembles 
more closely that of the animal, as it is forced to combat with extremes of 
cold, or to submit to extremes of heat; but within that zone tho highest 
intellectual activit}^ and culture are displaj'ed. Is it not, then, a fact of no 
little import that tho very axis of this zone — the center of equilibriuni betweei; 



12 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

excess of heat and of cold — the Januar}- isothermal line of forty-one degrees — 
passes nearer to the city of St. Louis than to any other considerable city on 
this continent? Close to that same isothermal lino lie London, Paris, Eome, 
Constantinople, and Pekin; north of it lie New York, Philadelphia, and 
Chicago, and south of it lies San Francisco. Thus favored in climate, lying in 
the very center of that belt of intellectual activity beyond which neither great 
man nor great city has yet appeared, St. Louis may, with reason, be expected 
to attain the highest rank, if other conditions favor. 

A second underlying fact that presents itself, is that nearly all the great 
cities of the world have been built upon rivers, whether in the interior or near 
the ocean's edge : such as Babylon, on the Euphrates ; Thebes, on the Nile j 
Nineveh, on the Tigris ; Borne, on the Tiber : Paris, on the Seine } London, on 
the Thames; New York, on the Hudson; Cincinnati, on the Ohio; St. Louis, 
on the Mississippi; and Constantinople, on the Bosphorus; while Carthage, St. 
Petersburg, and Chicago belong to interior waters, and Palmyra and the City of 
Mexico to the interior countr}-. 

A third fundamental fact is, that the arts and sciences do more to develope 
interior cities, and multiply population upon the interior lands, than upon the 
sea-boards or coast lands. Steam engines, labor-saving machines, books, the 
value and use of metals, government, the enforcement of laws, and other 
means of self-protection — all have tended more to make the people of the 
interior more numerous, powerful, and wealthy than those who dwell along the 
shoi'es of the oceans. 

A fourth fundamental fact is, that, to all modern civilization, domestic trans- 
portation by water and rail is more valuable to nations of largo territorial 
extent than ocean navigation. This fact is founded not onlj' upon the assump- 
tion that a nation's interests are of more importance to itself than to any other 
nation, and it hence necessarily does more business at home than abroad, but also 
upon the fact that the exchanges of domestic products within this country, it 
is estimated, already exceed in value six thousand millions yearly, while the 
Avhole value of all foreign exchanges is less than one thousand millions a 3'ear. 
With every year, as the country advances in population and industr}-, its 
domestic exchanges gain upon its foreign, and those cities, like New York, 
which must depend largely upon foreign trade, are overtaken in the race for 
commercial supremacy by inferior cities more favorably located for transacting 
the far greater business of domestic interchange. 

A fifth fundamental condition upon which to base a high civilization, a pros- 
perous, wealthy, and numerous people, who are destined to build great cities, 
is a country well adapted by nature with suitable climate and resources of soil, 
minerals, timbers, water-powers, and navigable advantages. 

A sixth and final fundamental fact is, that the most favored and surely to be 
a prosperous, wealthy, and numerous people, are those who are favored in land 
and country so far as to be able to organize the producer and consumer, side 
by side, Avith full and equal advantages to work out the great problems of 
usefulness in life, and share the liberty, the happiness, and intelligence, which 
the world affords. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 13 

The growth of a city is analogous to the growth of a man, and auxiliary to 
our six fundamental facts are the three following requisites to human life and 
individual prosperitj^ : 

I. The necessity for food. 
IL The necessity for clothing. 

III. The necessity for shelter. 

Thei'e can be no civilized life without all of these requisites ; and as they are 
the products of labor and skill, where they can be produced in the greatest abun- 
dance and used to the greatest advantage, and the most extensively, will almost 
certainl}^ be the place where the great city will grow up — where our problem will 
be solved. Added to these should be ample facilities for the intercommunion 
of the people, one with another, and for the ready exchange of commodities 
forming foreign and domestic commerce. These may be enumerated, as good 
i-oads, railways, and navigable channels, with attendant cheap freights. 

Thus, with this statement of fundamental facts, we are enabled to proceed 
to a discussion of the causes in nature and civilization, which, in their recip- 
rocal action, tend to fix the position of the future great city of the world. 

We have seen that the human race, with all its freight of commerce, its bar- 
barism and civilization, its arms and arts, through pestilence and prosperity, 
across seas and over continents, like one mighty caravan, has been moving 
forward, since creation's dawn, from the East to the West, with the sword and 
cross, helmet and distaif, to the conquest of the world; and, like a mighty 
army, leaving weakness behind and organizing power in the advance. Hence, 
we can easily realize that the same inevitable cause that wrested human power 
from the cities of the ancients, and vested it for a time in the city of the 
Cffisars, and from thence moved it to the city of London, will, in time, cross 
the Atlantic Ocean, and be organized and represented in the future grea]^ cit}^ 
of the world, which is destined to grow up on the American Continent; and 
that this power, wealth, and wisdom, that once ruled in Troy, Athens, Carthage, 
and Rome, and is now represented by the city of London — the precursor of 
the final great citj^ — will, in less than one hundred years, find a resting place 
in North America, and culminate in the future great city, which is destined to 
grow up in the central plain of the Continent, and upon the great Mississippi 
river, where the city of St. Louis now stands. 

In this westward march of civilization, we know that the center of the 
world's commerce, which was once represented b}'' the cities of the Mediter- 
ranean, has moved westward to the Atlantic Ocean, and is now represented by 
the city of London. The tendency is still westward, and that London can not 
remain the center for an}^ considerable length of time is universally evident. 
Human power is moving westward with an irresistible tendency, and is destined 
to be organized on the American Continent in its most absolute and gigantic 
form. 

There may be those who will assume that New York is to be the successor of 
London, and even surpass in population and commercial supremacy that great 
city of the trans-Atlantic shore, before the position and certainty of the final 
great city is fixed. This is not possible. Wo have only to comprehend the 



14 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

now character of our national industry, and the diversity of interests whicb it 
and our rapidly increasing 8_ystom of railways are establishing, to know that it 
is impossible. The city of New York will not, in the future, control the same 
proportionate share of the foreign and domestic commerce of the country that 
she hcreiofore has. New Orleans and San Francisco will take some of the 
present valued trade, and, together with other points which will soon partake 
of the outpost commerce, the trade to and from our country will he so divided 
as to prevent New York from becoming the rival, much less the superior, of 
London, as Mr. Scott has so earnestly contended. Then, in the westward 
movement of human power and the center of the world's commerce, from the 
cit}- of London to the New World, it is not possible for it to find a complete 
and final resting place in any cit}^ of the Atlantic seaboard, but will be com- 
pellel to move forward until, in its complete development, it will be organized 
and represented in the most favored city in the central plain of the Continent. 
Resides the diffusion of our external commerce through so many channels upon 
our seaboard, so as to prevent its concentration at any one of the seaboard 
cities, there are elements at work in the interior of the eountrj- which will 
more surely prevent the city that is to succeed London from growing up on the- 
Atlantic shore of our Continent. Every tendency of our national progress is 
more and more to our continental development, a living at homo, rather than 
going abroad to distant markets. There is an inherent piineiple lurking among 
all people of great continental nationality and resources, which impresses them 
stronger to home interest than to external and distant fields of action ; and this 
principle is rapidly infusing itself among the people of these great valley 
States; therefore, it is needless to look into the future to see our great cities on 
either seaboard of our Continent, for they are not destined to be there. But 
most certainly will they grow up in the interior, upon the lakes, the rivers, and 
the Gilf; and among these cities of the interior we are to look for the future 
great city of the world — that Avhich London now heralds, and which the 
westward tendency of the world's civilization will, in less than one hundred 
years, build up as the greatest industrial organism of the human race. 

Leaving the Atlantic seaboard and coming west of the Apaiachian moun- 
tains, we at once enter the domain of the Mississippi Yalley, which c-omprises 
an area of 2,445,000 square miles, and extends through thirty degrees of 
longitude and twenty-three degrees of latitude. In this Yalley, which is still 
new in its early development, there are already many large and flourishing 
cities, each expecting, in the future, to be greater than others. First among 
these stand Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Hqw Orleans — four cities 
destined, at no distant day, to surpass, in wealth and population, the four cities 
of the Atlantic seaboard, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. 
Assuming, then, that the future great city is to be in the Mississippi Yalley, we 
are to ascertain which of the four cities it is to be, or whether some new and 
more prosperous rival will present itself for the great mission. As the great 
city is to be in the future, we must view it as the growth of the well-developed 
resources of our country ; and, all things being considered, it is but just to say 
that, inasmuch as it will bo an organism of human power, it will grow up in or 
near the center of the productive power of the Continent. That Chicago^ 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 15 

Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans, have each many natural advantages, 
there can bo no question. There is, however, this difference : the area of sur- 
rounding habitable country, capable of ministering to the wants and supplj'ing 
the trade of a cit}-, is broken, in the case of New Orleans, by the Gulf and the 
lake, and by regions of swamp; in the case of Chicago, it is diminished one- 
third by the lake ; while Cincinnati and St. Louis both have around them 
unbroken and uninterrupted areas,, capable of sustaining a large population. 
But if we ask, to which of these cities belong the greatest advantages, must 
we not answer, it is the one nearest the center of the productive power of the 
Continent? Most certainly, for there will grow up the human power. And is 
not this center St. Louis ? We have only to appeal to facts to establish the 
superior natural advantages of St. Louis over anj^ other city on the Continent. 

But, before we enter upon a discussion of the productive powers of the 
Continent, let us look for one moment at the elements of human want, upon 
which civilization is founded; and this brings us back to a consideration of our 
auxiliary and essential requisites to our six fundamental facts. Under all 
circumstances, and in every condition of life, in country or clime, the first and 
greatest necessity of man is food ; and, with a civilization and an industry 
universally founded upon the principle of "for value received," it is incontro- 
vcrtably true that, in that part of the country where the most food can be 
produced and supplied at the cheapest rates to the consumers, there will be an 
essential requisite to encourage and sustain a dense population. Then, without 
entering into a detailed investigation of the advantages afforded to Chicago, 
Cincinnati, and New Orleans, for obtaining an all-suiScicnt supply of cheap 
food, we shall at once assume that St. Louis is central to a better and greater 
food-producing area or country than either one of the other three cities; and 
that no man can disprove the assumption, is most certainly true. 

St. Louis is, substantially, the geographical center of this great Yalley, 
which, as we have alread}- seen, contains an area of 2,455,000 square iniles, and 
will, in the mature development of the capacity of its soil, wield, at least, the 
products of 1,000,000 square miles. That wo may infer, approximate!}', the 
capacity of the more central portions of this Yalley for food-producing pur- 
poses, we call to the calculation an estimate, made by the Agricultural Bureau, 
of the cereal products of the Northwest for the next four decades : 

Year. Bushels. 

1870 702,200,000 

1880 1,21!), 520, 000 

1800 1,051.232,000 

1900 3, 12] ,070,000 

Wo consume in this country an average of about five bushels of wheat to the 
inhabitant, but, if necessary, can get along with something less, as we have 
man}' substitutes, such as corn, rye, and buckwheat. A low estimate will show 
that our population will be in : 

Year. ropulatinn. 

1870 42,000.000 

18S0 5t!, 000, 000 

1800 77,000,000 

1900 100,000,000 



16 TUE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

Accordingly, wo can use for homo consumption alono of wheat in : 

Year. Bushels. 

1870 ■. 210,000,000 

1880 280,000,000 

1890 385,000,000 

1900 500,000,000 

Thi8 calculation is made for Illinois, Missouri, lowa^ Wisconsin and Minne- 
sota, and by taking into the account Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian Territor}', 
and xVrkansas, four additional States which naturally belong to the account of 
this argument, wo at once swell the amount of food for the next three decades 
to a Bufliciency to supply hundreds of millions of human beings, at as cheap 
rates as good soil and human skill and labor can produce it. 

Nor do these States comprise half of the food-producing area of the Yalley 
of the Mississippi. Other large and fertile States, more eastern, and southern, 
and western — Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, Texas, Kansas and Nebraska — do now, and will continue to, con- 
tribute largely to the sum total of the food produced in the valley States. And 
when we consider that less than one-fifth of the entire products of the whole 
country in 1860 was exported to foreign countries, thus leaving four-fifths for 
exchange in domestic commerce between the States, and that such is the 
industrial and commercial tendency of our people to a constant proportional 
increase of our domestic over our foreign exchange, we see an inevitable 
tendency in our people to concentrate industrially and numerically in the 
interior of the continent. And when we take into the account that not more 
than eighteen per cent, of the soil of the best States of this valley is under 
cultivation, we are still more amazed at the thought of what the future 
will produce, when the whole shall have been brought under a high state of 
improved culture. Then the food-producing capacity of this valley will be 
ample to supply more people than now occupy the entire globe, and with the 
superior advantages of domestic navigation that St. Louis has over any of the 
valley cities, and the still additional advantages which she will have in railway 
communications, and her proximity to rich soils, where can a people be supplied 
with more and cheaper food than here ? Not only are the superior advantages 
afforded for the production of an abundance of cheap corn and wheat for food, 
but also for the growth of rye, oats, barley, sugar, and all kinds of vegetables 
and fruits essentially necessary for the wants of those who inhabit the land. 
In addition to the food taken direct from the soil, St. Louis is better situated 
than the other throe cities for being amply supplied, at the lowest possible rates, 
Avith the best quality of animal food. Not only is there every advantage on 
all sides to be supplied viith. animal food from the constantly increasing pro- 
ducts of agricultural districts adjacent to the citj', but in twenty hours' ride by 
railway wo reach tho great pastoral region of our country, whero, in a few 
years, cattle and sheep will swarm over the wide prairies in infinite numbers, 
where the}- are kept in reserve to supply the markets of the constantly increas- 
ing people. Already tho domestic animals — fjuadrupeds — are more numerous 
in civilized life than wore tho wild quadrupeds among the aboriginal savages of 
this country. In the year 1860, taken together, horses, asses and mules, oxen, 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 17 

sheep and swine amounted to more than one hundred millions, or more than 
three times the human population of the union. Considering the great pastoral 
region of our country, which will, before many years, be brought into use, the 
increase of quadrupeds will, no doubt, be greater than that of man ; at least, 
for the next fifty yeai's, the increase on the pastoral region will exercise a 
valuable influence in aiding to establish good and sufficient markets in the 
large cities of the valley States, thus concentrating and strengthening the 
power of the interior people, who will find ample food at all times. And, in 
every view of the subject of food, there seems to be no question as to the 
advantage St. Louis will possess for an abundance and for cheapness over the 
other three cities, holding, as she does^ the nearest relation to the producer, 
and with better facilities for obtaining it. 

Next to food, as a prime necessity, is the want of clothing. The principal 
materials out of which to make clothing are wool, cotton, linen, and leather. 
Each of these can be produced cheapest and best in and adjacent to the food- 
producing regions, or, at any rate, the wool and the leather. In fact, in the 
final advancement and multiplication of the human species upon the planet, 
for the want of room cotton will have to be abandoned, and only those animals 
and vegetables cultivated that can serve the double purpose of supplying food 
and clothing, and material for the mechanic arts. This will compel cattle and 
sheep, and wheat and corn, to be the principal food. The flesh of the sheep 
and the cow will supply food, and the hides, leather, and the wool, clothing. 
The grain of the corn and the wheat will also form food, while the stalk will 
enter into many uses in art. The hog will finally be compelled to give up the 
conflict of life ; his mission will be fulfilled, and man will require a more 
refined food for his more refined organization. Fish will not be in the way of 
man in his higher and more multitudinous walk upon the earth, and, conse- 
quently, will continue to supply a valuable portion of his food. Cotton will, 
ere long, be driven to an extreme southern coast, and, finally, gain a strong foot- 
hold in Central America and other more extreme southern countries, and, at 
last, yield to superior demands. But, to return : St. Louis, on account of the 
large area of rich and, in most part, cheap, lands, surrounding her in every 
direction, has equal, if not better, advantages for being supplied with ample 
materials for cheap and good clothing than any other city on the Continent; 
and, with superior advantages, as we shall show after awhile, for the manufac- 
ture of the materials into clothing, she will stand fii'st in facilities to supply 
food and clothing to her ever-increasing people. 

Next to food and clothing comes the necessity for shelter, or houses, which 
are essential to a high civilization. The materials out of which houses are 
mostly made, in American cities, are stone and brick, while the farmer builds 
of stone and wood. Of these building materials an inexhaustible supply is to 
be found in almost any direction avo may go out, for three hundred miles, from 
St. Louis. It may be said that, inasmuch as Chicago has the advantages of 
cheaper lumber, she has the advantage over St. Louis in building material; but 
this does not follow. The now and best buildings of Chicago are made of 
stone and brick, brought from distant places; while St. Louis stands on an 
immense foundation of good limestone, from which thousands of perch are 



18 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY, 

quarried annually, and worked into first-class buildings. Besides, within fifty 
and one hundred miles from the city, in the southeastern part of the State, are 
inexhaustible beds of choice qualities of as fine building stone as the Continent 
affords ; also, extensive forests of the most valuable timbers, suited for the 
mechanic arts, and for building material. Brick, of a first-class quality, are 
made in various parts of the city, and supply the demand for building purposes. 
Xor can any of these supplies be exhausted for ages to come. Stone and wood 
are found in abundance in all parts of the Valley States, wherewith to supply 
the fanner with cheap building materials. 

Thus, we have seen that the three essential requisites, food, clothing, and 
shelter, necessary to man's wants and the purposes of civilization, can be 
supplied in abundance and cheapness to St. Louis, with greater advantages 
than to anj' other city belonging to the Valley States; and these must render 
her the greatest market and best depot for such materials that the Continent 
affords: 

Passing, then, from these essential requisites, let us take up another line of 
discussion, that bears more directly upon the future development of American 
commerce and American civilization. I refer to the productive powder of the 
Continent, which is the basis of our physical and material life. In what does 
the productive power of the Continent consist? The answer must be, that it 
consists in the soils suited to agricultural purposes, the coal-fields, the mineral 
deposits, the valuable foi'ests, the water-powers, the domestic navigation, and 
all o'erspread w^ith a temperate and healthful climate. Although the largest 
coal and iron deposits of the Continent are already known, the geology of the 
entire extent is so imperfectly known that there still remain undisturbed in 
many of the territories, and even in some of the States, valuable deposits of 
these two substances, which, ere long, will be unearthed and made subservient 
to the wants of our people. 

Beginning with the soils of the countr}*, it is well understood, by those 
acquainted with its surface, that the largest and richest body of soil, best suited 
for corn, wheat, oats, rye, and hay-growing, is spread over the Valley States. 
In fact, no country in the world has so large an area of rich land as belongs to 
the States of the Mississippi Valley. In capacity for producing the various 
products in the department of agriculture, it has already been referred to in 
the discussion of the subject of food, and will require no further consid- 
eration. 

Next to the corn fields above come the coal-fields below, and the iron 
deposits. Those are the material upon which modern and more advanced 
civilization is founded, more than upon any other substances which the arts 
have brought into use. Says Prof. Taylor : 

"The two important mineral substances, coal and iron, have, when made 
available, afforded a permanent basis for commercial and manufacturing pros- 
perity. Looking at the position of some of the great depositories of coal and 
iron, one perceives that upon them the most flourishing population is concen- 
trated— the most powerful and magnificent nations of the earth are established. 
If these two apparently coarse and unattractive substances have not directly 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 19 

caused that high eminence to which some of these countries hare attained, 
thej, at least, have had a large share in contributing to it." 

M. Aug. Yischers also says, that " coal is now the indispensable aliment of 
industry; it is a primary material, engendering force, giving a power superior 
to that which natural agents, such as water, air, &c., procure. It is to industry 
what oxygen is to the lungs, water to the plants, nourishment to the animal. 
It is to coal we owe steam and gas." 

Whoever will look into the development of commerce and civilization during 
the greater part of this century, will tind that coal and iron have given them 
their cast and development in Europe and America. Nor have either of these 
attained their highest use. On examination, we find that St. Louis is far better 
supplied than Chicago, Cincinnati, or New Orleans, with coal and iron; in 
fact, she stands in a central position to the greatest coal-fields known on the 
globe. Surrounded on the one side by the inexhaustible coal-beds of Illinois, 
and on the other by the larger ones of Missouri, Iowa and Kansas, who can 
doubt her advantages in the use of this most important substance for the next 
two thousand years. On the one side we have Illinois, with her 30,000 square 
miles of coal, which is estimated by Prof. Eodgers to amount to 1,227,500,J00,000 
tons, which is much greater than the deposits in Pennsylvania, they amounting, 
according to the same authority, to 316,400,000,000 tons. On the other side we 
have Missouri, with more than 26,887 square miles, amounting to more than 
130,000,000,000 tons. Iowa has her 24,000 square miles of coal ; Kansas, 12,000 
square miles; Arkansas, 12,000 square miles; and the Indian Territory, 10,000 
squai'c miles. Nearly all the other States are likewise bountifully supplied, but 
these figures are sufficient to show the position of St. Louis to the greatest coal 
deposits in the world. "We can only approximate to the value of these resources 
by contrast. It is the available use ot' these two substances that has made 
England — a little island of the sea, not so great as the State of Iowa — the great 
heart of the world's civilization and commerce. She, with her 144,000,000,000 
tons, or 12,000 square miles, of coal, with its greater development and use, 
reckons her wealth, in substantial value, at §100,000,000,000'; while our nation, 
with our 3,740,000,000,000 tons, or 500,000 square miles, of less developed and 
not so well used coal, and more than twenty-five times as large, are only 
reckoned to be worth $23,400,000,000, with an annual increase of $921,700,000. 
It is true, our nation is only in its infancj-, but these facts and the contrast 
teach us how mighty we can be, if we do but use these apparently coarse and 
unattractive substances, coal and iron, as the best wisdom and skill will enable. 
We possess thirty-four times the quantity of coal and iron possessed by Eng- 
land, and perhaps double as much as that possessed by all other portions of the 
earth. These resources are availably located; they are in proximity to the 
widest plains and the richest soils known to man. They are developed by 
ocean-like lakes or magnificent rivers, and are, or will be, traversed by railroads 
from ocean to ocean. Their value is incalculable, their extent boundless, and 
their richness unequalled. They are mines of wealth, more valuable than gold, 
and sufficiently distributed over this great valley to supply well-regulated labor 
to 400,000,000 producers and consumers. Adjacent to our coal-fields are our 
mountains of iron of a superior quality, and of quantity inexhaustible. Thus 



20 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



is St. Louis favorod with coal and iron in such endless supplies, as to always 
render them as cheap as the American market can afford. The rich deposits 
of precious metals, which belong to the great mountain system of our continent, 
being on the west side of the valley, have already, and will necessarily 5'et more, 
contribute to building up the interior of the country', than either coast region; 
and though this interest never can be so valuable as that of coal and iron, it is 
of immense value and important in its bearing upon the subject under discus- 
sion. Already the account has been made largo, as the following table showsj 
l»ut not the half has been taken from those rich and extended mines: 

Table showing the Groivth of Coinage of the United States from 1793 to 1SG7. 



YEARS. 


GOLD. 


SILVKB. 


COPPER. 


TOTAL. 


1793 to 1800, 


8 years 


$1,014,290 00 


$1,440,454 75 


$79,390 82 


$2,534,135 57 


1801 to 1810, 


10 " 


3,250,742 50 


3,569,165 25 


151,246 39 


6,971,154 14 


ISU to 1820, 


10 " 


3,1(50,510 00 


5,970,810 95 


191,158 57 


9,328,479 52 


1821 to 1830, 


10 " 


1,903,092 50 


16,781,046 95 


151,412 20 


18,835,551 05 


1S31 to 1810, 


10 '' 


18,791,862 00 


27,199,779 00 


342 322 21 


46,333,063 21 


1841 to 1850, 


10 " 


89,443,328 00 


22,226,755 00 


380,070 83 


112,050,753 83 


1851 to ISCIO, 


n " 


470,838,180 98 


48,087,763 13 


1,249,012 53 


520,175,550 04 


1861 to 1S67, 


r. 


296,907,464 G3 


12,638,732 11 


4,869,350 00 


314,475,546 74 


Total, 


74 years 


$885,375,470 61 


$137,914,587 14 


$7,415,163 55 


$1,030,705,141 30 



Valuable forests of the best timbers used in mechanical industry are to be 
found in the southeastern part of the State, and will, in due time, furnish 
material for agricultural implements, furniture, and the various uses to which 
timber is applied. Water powers, not surpassed in any part of New England, 
are to be found in many parts of the southern half of the State, and which, 
when properly improved, will contribute largely to the commercial interests of 
St. Louis. 

There still remains to be considered the domestic navigation of the Missis- 
sippi Valley. This includes, in its broadest scope, the Gulf and the greater 
lakes, with the Mississippi river and her tributaries, which comprises the finest 
inland navigation on the globe. The rivers at!brd more than 20,000 miles of 
navigable water, which form transportation facilities for the commei'ce of the 
most productive portions of the great Valley States. The following remark of 
Col. Benton is very expressive of the magnitude and importance of the river 
S3'stem of this great valley : 

"The river navigation of the Great West," said he, ''is the most wonderful 
on the globe, and, since the application of steam power to the propulsion of 
vessels, possess the essential qualities of open navigation. Speed, distance, 
cheapness, magnitude of cargoes, are all there, and without the perils of the 
soa from stoi-ras and enemies. The steamboat is the ship of the river, and finds 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 21 

in the Mississippi and its tributaries the amplest theater for the diffusion and 
the displaj^ of its power. Wonderful river ! Connected with seas by the head 
and by the mouth, stretching its arms toward the Atlantic and the Pacific, 
lying in a valley which is a valley from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson's Bay ; 
drawing its first waters not from rugged mountains, but from the plateau of 
the lakes in the center of the continent, and in communication with the 
sources of the St. Lawrence and the streams which take their course north to 
Hudson's Bay; draining the largest extent of richest land, collecting the pro- 
ducts of every clime, even the frigid, to bear the whole to market in the sunny 
South, and there to meet the products of the entire world. Such is the Missis- 
sippi; and who can calculate the aggregate of its advantages and the magnitude 
of its future commercial results ? " 

St. Louis is situated central to this great system of domestic navigation, and 
cannot fail to be, in all the future, the most important city and depot identified 
with its interests. In the nature of river navigation, a smaller class of boats 
are required for the upper waters than those which can be most economically 
used in deeper streams, and hence arises a necessity for transfer, at some point, 
from up-river boats to those of greater tonnage; and at that point of transfer, 
business enough of itself to sustain a considerable city must arise. The fact 
that St. Louis is this natural point of transfer between the upper Avaters 
of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois, and the great channel thence to 
the Gulf, is not to be overlooked in estimating its natural advantages. To 
the domestic navigation we add the railway system of the Yalley States, 
which will, in a few years more, comprise more than 100,000 miles; and, by 
reference to the map illustrating this new inland agency for the easy exchange 
of products and people, we behold at a glance a most wonderful system 
traversing all parts of these States. In the rapid construction of these lines 
of communication, St. Louis is fast becoming the greatest railway center 
on the continent, as well as in the world, and, with her advantages for 
domestic navigation, she is soon to be provided with the best commercial 
facilities of any city on the globe; and to her 20,000 miles of river navigation 
will be added, in less than fifteen years, a continental system of railway commu- 
nication; and with all these constantly bearing an ever-increasing commerce 
to her markets, who cannot foresee her destiny among the cities of the world? 
These thousands of miles of railway can be built the cheapest of any extended 
system in the world, as they are unobstructed by mountain ranges; they will 
also be the straightest, shortest, and best routes from point to point, for the 
same reason. Granting that she will become the center of the greatest railway 
communication and of river navigation in the country, we must take into the 
account the question of freights, as an item of interest which will bear directly 
upon the subject of the growth of all American cities. Cheap freights will 
have a direct and important bearing upon the matter of distributing food and 
raiment to the people of the "Valley States, and, also, of giving to their products 
the advantages of the best market. To settle this question in favor of St, 
Louis, involves but two points necessary to be considered : the first, the uni- 
versal competition constantly between the various rival railroads of the Yalley 
States, which will, of necessity, make the freights to St. Louis as cheap as to 



22 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

any other city 5 the second point is, that St. Louis stands in the midst of the 
greatest producing and consuming region of the country, and in this she cannot 
fail to have the advantages over any rival city that may aspire for empire in 
the republic or the world. Situated, then, as she is, in the very heart of the 
productive power of the country, and destined, at a very earl}' date, to be 
connected by railway and by water, in the most advantageous way, with every 
city and harbor upon our sea coast, and with everj' inland city and productive 
region where industry and wealth can find opportunity, we are led to consider 
her future as a commercial and manufacturing cit}', and her advantages to 
become a distributing point for the future millions of industrious and intelligent 
of our race, who are yet to inhabit this continent, under one flag and one 
language. 

Let us go a little deeper into the discussion. Having pointed out a condition 
of advantages which nature, by an inscrutable wisdom, has organized sufficiently 
strong to insure, under a well-directed civilization, the production on our con- 
tinent of the future great city of the world, it is a part of the argument to 
point out some of the essential incidental wants and conditions, which must 
control the use of products in civilized life, in order to make them subserve the 
highest use in supplying the wants of man. 

The first essential want of any productive people is markets, whereat to 
dispose of their surplus products, mechanical or agricultural, at profitable 
prices. Markets are a want of population in all lands. Mr. Seaman says, in 
the first series of his valuable work on the progress of nations, that '' popula- 
tion, alone, adds value to lands and property of every kind, and is, therefore, 
one of the principal sources and causes of wealth." And why is it so ? Simply 
because it creates a market by causing a demand for property and products ; 
it enhances their price and exchangeable value, rewards the producer for his 
industry, and encourages and increases industry and production. Population 
thus creates markets, and markets operate to enhance prices and to increase 
wealth, industry, and production. Markets are, therefore, among the principal 
causes and sources of value and of wealth, and stimulants of industry. The 
farmer, mechanic, miner, and manufacturer, are all beneficial to each other, for 
the reason that each wants the products of everj' other in exchange for his 
own, and thus each creates a market for the products of all the others, and 
thereby enhances prices and stimulates their industry. Hence, the advantage 
to the farmer of increasing mechanical, manufacturing, and mining industry, 
as far as practicable, in his own country, in order to create a market for his 
products and to encourage domestic commerce. 

Agricultural products, alone, cannot furnish the materials of an active 
commerce, and two nations almost exclusivelj' agricultural have seldom much 
intercourse with each other. Tyre, Carthage, and Athens, in ancient, and 
Venice, Florence, Genoa, and the Netherlands, in more modern times, were the 
greatest of commercial nations, at their respective eras, as Great Britain is 
now, because they were also in advance of all other nations in the mechanic 
arts and manufactures, and their commerce was based on their mechanism and 
manulacturing industry, which furnished the principal subject, matter, and 
materials, for making exchanges and carrying on commerce with foreign 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 23 

nations. Then it is tliat the people of this great Yalley must look to the 
proper and highest use of the resources and materials which nature has so 
bountifully bestowed. Capital and skill must be made to supply the ever- 
increasing demand of this growing people, and thus it will become the mightiest 
in art, the most bountiful in the field, and the richest in commerce, "and in 
peace more puissant than army or navy, for the conquest of the world ; " and, 
stimulated to loftier endeavors, each citizen, yielding to irresistible attraction, 
will seek a new life in the great national family. 

But it is argued by some, that a city cannot be successful in the pursuit of 
both commercial and manufacturing interests. This cannot be maintained as a 
correct position. There never has been any war between commerce and 
mechanic arts. There can be none. They are the twin offspring of industry 
and intelligence, and alike dependent on each other for prosperit}-. ^J'he false 
conception of the relations they hold to each other, and the condition of pros- 
perity they impose upon a city, comes from a failure to perceive the true 
interests. The principles of economy regulate them both, and it is rarely that 
a city situated, as they ai'e, on a harbor, on the coast, or an available point on a 
river, where commerce can find its easiest exchange, is equally advantageously 
situated to the raw material necessary to enter into the mechanic arts on such 
terms of competition as to enable the producer to compete with rival products 
in the market of the country. It is because cities are so situated that a strict 
adherence to the rules of economy cannot admit of the union of commerce and 
mechanic arts in the same city, that some suppose that a commercial city can- 
not be made a manufacturing citj", and that a manufacturing city cannot be 
made a commercial city. 

The following remarks, from a writer in the Wew York Times, is a valuable 
item in our argument : "No one who desires to understand the whole subject of 
his country's future, should fail to seek the metropolitan center of that country. 
The question which puzzles the people, and even the newspapers, of late, is 
this, ' Where is the Paris, the London, or the Jerusalem, of the nation?' I 
know New York has 3'et the clearest title to that claim, but of late St. Louis 
has spoken much and often in her own behalf — with what truthfulness, I 
propose to examine. Chicago has been heard, Cincinnati puts in her voice, 
Philadelphia prides herself upon her strength and beauty, Boston calls herself 
the hub, and others put in their claims. Now, next to New York, I am 
disposed to regard the claim of St. Louis. Before slavery died this claim was 
not worth much, but that dead weight is now removed. Standing here, then, 
in St. Louis, an eastern man, I cannot resist the impression that I am in the 
future commercial, if not political, metropolis of the land. A thousand voices 
conspire to enforce this impression upon the not very prophetic mind. I would 
make no inviduous flings at the cheek of Chicago, the conceit of Boston, the 
cool silence of a New Yorker, as he points to a forest of masts and a million 
of people, the nonchalant aii'S of the City of Brotherly Love, and the peculiar 
habits of Cincinnati. Chicago has the railroads, she says. Granted. A 
metropolis of railroads, without a river deep, pure, and broad enough to afford 
drink to her present population, suggests the idea that railroads cannot make a 
city. Fitchburg, in Massachusetts, has more railroads than any New England 



24 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

town. What docs that bring her, save the name of being Fitchburg ? Ship- 
pin"- alone, which you have in New York^ cannot make a city. Philadelphia 
ma}' keep on annexing every town in Pennsylvania, and Jersey, too, and that 
cannot make a metropolis. The pork trade flourishes in Cincinnati, but even 
80 respectable a constituency as a gentlemanly porker, who loves luxury, lives 
on the fat of the land, and is otherwise excessively aristocratic, cannot make a 
metropolis. In fact, no great cosmopolitan center can be made out of one 
specialty. Manchester is greater than London in its specialty, but Manchester's 
specialtj' must always keep it constrained, and prevent its ever becoming a 
center. Cologne, with ' seventy-nine well-defined, distinct and separate ' 
perfumes, has made it the city of odors, but Cologne can never bo a capital. 
Shoes make and kill Lynn at once. Lowell and Lawrence have reached their 
highest glory. Chicago is a depot for speculators in grain, and Cincinnati 
abounds in hogs, but this is the end of their glory. New York and St. Louis 
are alike in this. You will find every specialty in about equal proportion. St. 
Louis only needs one thing to make it to the West what New York is to the 
Hast — railroads. She is not even an inland city. Light draught sailing vessels 
can sail from St. Louis to London. All that she further needs is age. Up to 
1866, capital was slow to venture and settle down in this city. Save a few 
thrifty Germans, the population of St. Louis was southern. This was her 
condition up to this time, so that she, practically, is a city of only ten j-ears' 
growth." 

There is another pi-inciple that enters into the account, which may be termed 
the involuntary or fortuitous cause — a kind of happening so ! It is the highest 
form of incidental action in commerce. Often commerce, as if by the control 
of an unknown law, will change from one city to another, and impoverish the 
one and give vitality and strength to the other. These changes, at first thought, 
seem to bo as inexplicable as the eddy movements of the water in the stream. 
They are changes that usually have their origin in the action of a single man 
in the timely use of money; sometimes by a distant cause, sometimes by 
legislation, but never does commerce forsake an available point for the 
development of mechanical industiy. Looking at St. Louis, with her location 
for internal commerce and mechanical industry without a parallel on the earth, 
we can safclj" say that she is destined to unite in one great interest a system 
of commerce and manufacturing that will surpass in wealth and skill that of 
New England. It is true, her iron furnaces and glass factories will be built 
some distance outside of her corjjorate limits, but the wealth and the labor will 
bo hers, and beneath her sway will be united side by side, in the most profit- 
able relations and on the largest scale^ the producer and consumer; and they, 
actuated by a universal amity, will seek the most liberal compensation, attain 
the highest skill, aspire to a better manhood, and learn to do good. The 
manufacturing of wood into its various uses will also form a very important 
part of the industry of this cit}':, as will also the manufacturing of fabrics of 
various kinds. Thus, with a great system of manufacturing industry, com. 
l)clling the coal, the iron, the wood and the sand to serve the purposes and 
wants of the commercial interests, as well as to enter into all channels through 
which capital flows and which industry serves, both wealth and population will 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 25 

be developed and concentrated in the highest degree. The -time fixed for the 
future great city of the world to grow up, as the most consummate fruit of 
man's civilization, is within one hundred years from our date. 

The organization of society as one whole is yet too imperfect to call for the 
use of one all-directing head, and one central moving heart, and it will only be 
the ultimate, the final great cit}^ that will fully unite in itself the functions 
analogous to those of the human head and heart, in relation to the whole family 
of man. The center of this great commercial power will also carry with it 
the center of moral and intellectual power. One hundred years, at our previous 
rate of increase, will give more than four duplications, and more than six 
hundred millions of people, to the present area of our country. But, allowing 
twenty-five years for a duplication, and four duplications, we would have six 
hundred millions at the close of one hundred years. Of these, not less than 
four hundred millions will inhabit the interior plain and the region west of it; 
and not over two hundred millions will inhabit the margin east of the Appa- 
lachian mountains. The productions of these four hundred millions, intended 
for exchange with each other, will meet at the most convenient point central 
to the place of the growth or manufacture of their products. Where, then, 
let us inquire again, are most likely to be the most ample and best facilities 
for the exchange of commodities ? Where will that point be ? Which of the 
four"cities we have under consideration is best suited for this great purpose ? 
Must it not be St. Louis, commanding, as she will, the greatest railway and 
river communication ? It cannot be a lake city, for neither of them can com- 
mand, with so great advantage, the great surplus products of the country. It 
cannot be Cincinnati, for she is not so well situated in the center of the 
productive power of the continent. It cannot be New Orleans ; higher freights 
upon the products of the country will be against her. It cannot be JSTew York, 
nor San Francisco, for all our six fundamental facts stand against them, and 
unerringly point to the central plain of the continent, where the four hundred 
millions of people will prefer to transact business. Human power, as already 
stated, is moving westward from the old world, as well as from our own 
Atlantic seaboard. But a few facts are necessary to demonstrate the truth of 
this statement: First, in evidence that human power is moving westward 
from the old world ; we have but to refer to the reports of the State Depart- 
ment at Washington upon our foreign commerce, to learn that our imports 
are "greater than our exports, and our internal commerce far greater than 
our foreign commerce; and, by reference to the various reports on emigra- 
tion, we learn that thousands are coming from Western Europe, yearly, to our 
shores, while but few of our own people are seeking homes on the other side 
of the Atlantic. Second, in evidence of the westward movement of human 
power from the Atlantic States, the following statistical facts are given. 
Although the following table shows, in the most conclusive manner, that human, 
power is moving westward, since it was made up many thousands of miles o£ 
railways have been added to the great system of the Mississippi Valley : 



2G 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



Table showing the Annual Progress of Railways for the last Forty Years. 



Year. Miles. 

1828 3 

1829 28 

1830 41 

1831 54 

1832 131 

1833 r>76 

1834 702 

1835 918 

1836 1,102 

1837 1,421 

1838 1,843 

1839 1,920 

1840 2,197 

1841 3,319 

1842 3,877 



Year. Miles. 

1843 4,174 

1844 4,311 

1845 4,522 

1840 4,870 

1847 5,380 

1848 5,682 

1849 6,350 

1850 7,475 

1851 8,589 

1852 11,027 

1853.-. 13,497 

1854 15,072 

1855 17.398 

1850 19,251 



Year. Miles. 

1857 22,625 

18.58 25,090 

1859 20,755 

1860 28,771 

1861 30,598 

1802 31,769 

1803 32,471 

1SC4 33,860 

1805 34,442 

1800 35,351 

1S07 30,890 

1868 38,822 

1869 42,272 

1870 48,860 



Table showing the Railways of the United States, by States. 



Maine 

New Hampshire 

Vermont 

Massachusetts 

Rhode Island 

Connecticut 

New York 

New Jersey 

Pennsylvania 

Delaware 

Maryland and D. C. 

West Virginia 

Kentucky , 

Ohio :..., 

Michisfin 

Indiana 

Illinois 

Wisconsin 

Minnesota 

Iowa 

Missouri 

Kansas 

Nebraska 

California 

Oregon 

Virginia 

North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Georgia 

Florida 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Tennessee 

Arkansas 

Louisiana 

Texas 

Territories 



Miles. 




502. 

059. 

594. 
1,330. 

119. 

037. 
3,025. 

904. 
4,037. 

157. 

522 . 

3(>4. 

625. 
3,402. 

900. 
2,211. 
3,250. 
1,045. 

392. 
1,154. 

937. 

240. 

275. 

321, 

19. 

1.410, 

977. 

988, 
1,437, 

407, 

891. 

867 
1,317, 

TJl 

335 

479 




Total for ISOS 36,896.20 

Total for 1870 | 48,800.00 



$18,242,235 
22,0.52,003 
24,892,234 
79,400,774 
4,858,799 
24,380,018 

152,570,709 
55,994,403 

210,080,309 

5,008,864 

30,573,275 

24,978,843 

22,392,122 

135,231,975 
41,075,724 
79,180,707 

139,084,414 

40,081,360 

12,450,000 

45,480,000 

51,357,077 

9,750,000 

12,500,000 

24,200,000 

500,000 

49.974,457 

20,020,310 

25.207,977 

29,177,063 

8.868,000 

21,010,982 

25,416,394 

34,1,85,210 

4.400,000 

13.627,6.-)4 

17,280,000 



$30,315 
33,440 
41,864 
59,704 
40,737 
38,225 
50.431 
01,913 
52,037 
37.279 
58,501 
08,498 
35,77() 
39,739 
43,133 
35,802 
42,791 
38,343 
31,700 
39,407 
54,995 
40,540 
45,454 
75,272 
25,041 
35,275 
20,485 
25,491 
20,301 
21,762 
25,154 
29,315 
25.937 
43,562 
40,577 
36,044 



Bl, 517, 510, 765 $41,129 
2,009,562,9401 



S<j. miles. 

31,700 

9,280 

10,212 

7,800 

1,300 

4,074 

47,000 

8,320 

46,000 

2,120 

11,18-1 

20,541 

87,080 

39,904 

50,243 

33,809 

55,405 

53,924 

83,531 

55,045 

07,380 

78,418 

70,928 

188,982 

95,274 

61,352 

50,704 

29,385 

52,009 

59,269 

50,72-. 

47,150 

45,600; 

52,198, 

40,431 

237,504 

1,243,416 



628.279: 
326,073; 
315,098; 

1,231,060^ 
174,020 
460.147 

3,880,735 
072,035 

2,900,115 
112,210 
702,129 
349,698 

1,155,684 

2,339,511 
749,113 

1,350,428 

1,711,951 
775,881 
172,123 
074,913 

1,182,012 

107,200 

28,841 

379,994 

52,405 

1,246,381 
992,667 
703,812 

1,057,329 
140,439 
964,296 
791,390 

1,109,801 
435,427 
709,290 
002,432 
524,387 



s. M. i 

, 02' 

14 

17 



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9 
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50| 
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111 
58 
15 
17 
51 

213 

47 

72 

. 327| 

279; 

508 
5,014 
43 
52 
28 
36 

145 
57 
54 
?,4 

273 

138 

495 



3,001,002 31,747,5141 81 



Pop. 

1,234 
495 
529 
925 

1.467 
721 

1,283 
743 
720 
714 

1,457 
95S 

1,840 
687 
775 
610 
527 
742 
439 
498 

1,260 
445 
105 

1,180 

2,690 
879 

1,016 
711 
737 
345 
182 
913 
842 

2,279 

2,111 

1,257 



800 



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THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 29 

But granting that human power is moving westward, "we must assume that 
somewhere in time it will be arrested, and culminate in the highest enfoldment 
of civil, social and material life. Then, in its westward movement, will it be 
arrested in North America, or will it cross the Pacific to the inferior i*aces of 
Asia, or will it reach and make a lodgment on the Pacific slope ? We cannot so 
reason or apprehend. The vast arid and mountainous regions of the western 
half of the continent, and the unequaled extent of fertile lands on the eastern 
half of the continent, and adjacent to and on either side of the great river, 
fixes its location inevitably in the central plain of the continent ; and in the 
center of its productive powei', and with the development and complete 
organization of human power in the center of the productive power of the 
continent, will most certainly grow up the great city of the future, the great 
material, social, civil, and moral heart of the human race. The raw materials 
necessary to the artisan and the manufacturer, in the production of whatever 
ministers to comfort and elegance, are here. The bulkiness of food and raw 
matei'ials makes it the interest of the artisan and the manufacturer to locate 
himself near the place of their production. It is this interest, constantly 
operating, which peoples our Western towns and cities with emigrants from 
the Eastern States and Europe. When food and raw matei'ials for manufacture 
are no longer cheaper in the great valley than in the States of the Atlantic 
and the nations of Western Europe, then, and not till then, will it cease to be 
the interest of artisans and manufacturei's to prefer a location in Western 
towns and cities. This time will probably be about the period when the Mis- 
sissippi shall flow toward its head. 

The chief points for the exchange of the varied productions of industry in 
our western valley will necessarily give employment to a great population. 
Indeed, the locations of our future great cities have been made with reference 
to their commercial capabilities. Commerce has laid the foundation on which 
manufactui"es have been, to a great extent, instrumental in rearing the super- 
structure. Together, these departments of labor are destined to build up in 
our fertile valley the greatest cities of the world. 

It is something to us Americans that this great city, the great all-directing 
heart of the race, is to grow up in our land. Even to us of this generation a 
realization of the final fact is a proud thought to enjoy, in the present and 
coming conflicts of this progressive life. As we have already seen, St. Louis is 
substantially central to the Mississippi Valley, and no city on the continent can 
laj' any just claim to become the futui'c great city, and occup}' a central position 
to so many valuable resources as she does. She is not only substantially in the 
center of the Mississippi Valley, but, allowing her to be nine hundred miles 
from New York city, she occupies the center of an area of 2,541,688 square 
miles, and within a circumference^ the outer line of which touches Chicago. 
She occupies the center of an area of country which, in fertility of soil, coal, 
iron, timber, stone, water, domestic navigation, and railway's, cannot be equaled 
on the globe. 

Cities, like individuals, have a law of growth that may be said to be consti- 
tutional and inherent, but the measure of that law of growth does not seem to 
be sufficiently understood to furnish a basis for calculating their growth to any 



30 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

considerable time in the future. In the development of a nation and country, 
new agencies are continually coming into the account of growth and work, 
either favorable or unfavorable. The growth of cities is somewhat analogous 
to the pursuits of business of men : some move rapidly forward in the accumu- 
lation of wealth, to the end of life ; others only for a time are able to keep 
even with the world. So, too, in the growth of cities ; and thus it is difficult to 
calculate with exactness their future growth. Cities grow with greater rapid- 
ity than nations and States, and much sooner double their population ; and, 
with the constantly increasing tendency of the people to live in cities, we can 
look with greater certainty to the early triumph of our inland cities over those 
of the seaboard ; for, so surely as the population of the valley States doubles 
that of the seaboard States, so surely will their cities be greater. The city of 
London, now the greatest in the world, having more than three million people, 
has only doubled its population eveiy thirty years, while New York has doubled 
eveiy fifteen years. According to Mr. J. W. Scott, London grows at an aver- 
age annual rate, on a long time, of two per cent.; ISTew York, at five ; Chicago, 
at twelve and one-half; Toledo, twelve; Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Cin- 
cinnati, Buffalo, and St. Louis, at the rate of eight per cent. Mr. Scott gives 
those calculations as approximately true for long periods of time. They may 
be essentially true in the past, but cannot be relied on for the future, for^ as I 
have already said, the growth of a city is as uncertain as a man's chance is in 
business — he may pass directly on to fortune, or may be kept back by the 
fluctuations of the markets, or greater hindrances interposed by wars. Touch- 
ing the subject of climate, I shall not deem it of sufficient beai'ing upon this 
subject to enter into a nice discussion of the influence of heat and cold upon 
man in civilized life, in the north temperate zone of the North American 
continent. All experience teaches that there is not sufficient variation of the 
climate throughout the middle belt of our country to adversely affect the 
highest and greatest purposes of American industry and Amei-ican civiliza- 
tion. The same rewards and the same destiny await all. The densest popula- 
tion of which we have any record is now, and has been for centuries, on the 
thirtieth degree of north latitude, and if such can be in China, why may it not 
be in America ? 

xlgain, returning to our first fundamental fact, that human power is moving 
westward from the city of London, we must calculate that that great city will 
bo succeeded by a rival, one which will grow up in the new world, and that that 
new city will result in the final organization of human society in one complete 
whole, and the perfect development and systemization of the commerce of the 
world ; will grow to such magnificent proportions, and be so perfectly organ- 
ized and controlled in its municipal governmental character, as to constitute 
the most perfect and greatest city of the world — the all-directing head and 
heart of the great fiimily of man. The new world is to be its home, and nature 
and civilization will fix its residence in the central plain of the continent, and 
in the center of the productive power of this great valley, and upon the Missis- 
sippi river, and where the city of St. Louis now stands. All arguments point 
to this one great fact of the future, and, with its perfect realization, will be 
attained the highest possibility in the material triumph of mankind. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 31 

Let us comprehend the inevitable causes which God and civilization have set 
to work to produce, in time, this final great city of the world in our own fair 
land; and, with prophetic conception, realizing its final coming, let us hail it as 
the master-work of all art, and the home of consummated wisdom, the inher- 
itance of organic liberty, and controlled by an all-pervading social order that 
will insure a competency to every member of the in-gathered family. The 
immense accommodation of railroads will, by rapid, cheap, and easy communi- 
cation, draw to great centers from great distances around, and thus the great 
cities of the world will continue to grow until they reach a magnitude hitherto 
unknown ; and, above them all, will St. Louis reap the rich rewards of modern 
discoveries and inventions, especially as regards steam and all its vast and 
varied influence. 

Henceforth St. Louis must be viewed in the light of her future, her mighti- 
ness in the empire of the world, her sway in the rule of States and nations. 
Her destiny is fixed. Like a new-born empire, she is moving forward to 
conscious greatness, and will soon be the world's magnet of attraction. In 
her bosom all the extremes of the countr}'- are represented, and to her growth 
all parts of the country contribute. Mighty as are the possibilities of her 
people, still mightier are the hopes inspired. The city that she now is is only 
the germ of the city of the future that she will be, with her ten million souLs 
occupying the vast area of her dominion. Her strength will be that of 
a nation, and, as she grows toward maturity, her institutions of learning and 
philosophy will correspondingly advance. If we but look forward, in imagi- 
nation, to her consummated greatness, how grand is the conception ! We can 
realize that here will be reared great halls and edifices for art and learning ; 
here will congregate the great men and women of future ages ; here will be 
represented, in the future, some Solon and Hamilton, giving laws for the 
higher and better government of the people; here will be represented some 
future great teachers of religion, teaching the ideal and spiritual unfolding of the 
race, and its allegiance to the angel world; here will live some future Plutarch, 
weighing the great men of his age ; here some future "Mozart" will thrill the 
strings of a more perfect lyre, and improvise grandest melodies for the congre- 
gated people ; here some future " Eembi'andt," through his own ideal imagina- 
tion, will picture for himself more perfect panoramic scenes of nature's lovely 
landscapes. May we not justly rejoice in the anticipation of the future great- 
ness of the civil, social, industrial, intellectual, and moral elements, which are 
destined to form a part of the future great city ? And may we not rearlize that 
the millions who are j'et to be its inhabitants will be a wiser and better people 
than those of this generation, and who, in more perfect life, will walk these 
streets, in the city of the future, with softer tread, and sing music with sweeter 
tones, be urged on by aspirations of higher aims, rejoice with fuller hearts, and 
adorn in beauty, with more tender hands, the final great city of the world ? 



32 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



WATEK AS AN IMPORTANT AUXILIARY TO THE GROWTH OF A 

GREAT CITY, AND THE ADVANTAGE POSSESSED BY 

ST. LOUIS FOR AN INEXHAUSTIBLE SUPPLY. 



A liberal supply of water has at all times beou considered one of the chief 
necessities to the growth and prosperity of a large city. In many parts of 
Syria and Palestine large reservoirs and tanks were constructed in the past, 
which at the present time are the only resource for water during the dry 
season, and the failure of them involves drought and calamity. 

The most celebrated of the pools mentioned in Scripture are the pools of 
Solomon, about three miles south-west of Bethlehem, from which an aqueduct 
was cari'ied which still supplies Jerusalem with water. These pools are said 
to be three in number, partly hewn out of the rock, and partly built with 
masonry, but all lined with cement. The largest of them is 582 feet long by 
207 feet wide and 50 feet deep. 

The Romans spared no expense to procure for their city an abundant supply 
of pure water. Their aqueducts, some of which are still in operation, at one 
time carried to that city 350,000,000 gallons of water daily, or 290 gallons 
daily for each inhabitant. Some of these aqueducts had a length of from thirty 
to seventy miles, and in magnificence and costliness far surpassed the most cele- 
brated works of modern origin. 

The earliest and most liberal provisions for a water supply on our own con- 
tinent were made by the cities of Philadelphia, New Y^'ork, and Boston, and to 
this must be ascribed in a great measure the rapid growth of these cities. In 
1860 the amount of water supplied daily to each inhabitant of these cities 
averaged ninety-seven gallons in Boston, fifty-two gallons in New Y'ork, and 
thirty-six gallons in Philadelphia. The works in these cities when designed 
seemed to be of sufficient capacity to furnish a supply for many years, but 
their growth has been so rapid that they already feel the necessity of husband- 
ing their resources, and of taking measures to extend their Avorks so as to b« 
enabled to meet the increased and increasing consumption. In fact, during the 
severe drought of last year a scarcity of water was experienced in each of 
these cities, owing to the inadequacy of their sources of supply. 

The great advantage possessed by St. Louis in this respect consists in the 
fact that its source of supply is inexhaustible. The Mississippi in time of an 
ordinary stage carries past the city about 1,500,000 gallons of water per 
second, or enough in six seconds to supply the present necessities of its inhabit- 
ants for a whole day. It is not only abundant, but is one of the most whole- 
some waters known. It is true that in time of high water it contains a large 
per centage of sedimentary matter, brought down by the swift current of th« 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 33 

Missouri river, but of this it is easily freed by settling and filtering. And it is 
worthy of mention here that the old inhabitants of our city are so far from 
being averse to this admixture of sedimentary matter, that they almost regret 
that the new works now in course of construction will furnish them settled or 
clear water. 

The first waterworks in St. Louis consisted of a reservoir on the Big Mound, 
supplied by a small engine from the Mississippi river. It was constructed in 
1829-30, and designed to contain 300,000 gallons. The city of St. Louis then 
numbered 5,852 inhabitants. In 1850, the population being then 77,860, a 
larger reservoir was completed, holding about 8,000,000 gallons. This reser- 
voir has also been out of use for many years. The reservoir by which the city 
is now supplied was finished in 1855, when the city contained 125,000 inhabit- 
ants. The water is pumped into it by three pumps located at the foot of 
Bates street, and having a total capacity of about 11,000,000 gallons per day. 
One of these pumps was procured by the present Board of Water Commis- 
sioners in 1868, the other two not having sufficient capacity to supply the city 
beyond a contingency. Previous to the year 1860 it had become apparent that 
the existing works would soon be insufficient to supply the city. In fact, the 
area of the city had been extended so much, and in the direction of grounds 
so much higher than the reservoir, that a large portion of the territory 
included within the new limits could not be supplied. The question of new 
and more extended works was agitated for several years, but without any 
result, until the Governor of the State, under a law passed in January, 1865, 
appointed a Board of Water Commissioners. These gentlemen appointed Mr. 
Jas. P. Ivirkwood^ the acknowledged head of hydraulic engineers in the 
United States, since his completion of the Brooklyn waterworks, their Chief 
Engineer. 

In October, 1865, Mr. Ivirkwood submitted several plans of works to the 
Commissioners. The one adopted by them was subsequently rejected by the 
Common Council, to whom, according to the then existing law, belonged the 
final decision of the matter. The members of the Board of Water Commis- 
sioners resigned, and a new Board appointed by the Governor, having retained 
Mr. Kirkwood's services, submitted new plans to the Common Council for 
approval, after Mr. Kirkwood had modified his former plans so as to bring 
them in accordance with the expressed opinion of the Council. There seeming 
to be but little hope that the conflicting opinions of the members of our City 
Council would ever admit of their approving any plan, a new law was passed 
by the Legislature Avhich placed the whole matter in the hands of a commission 
of three members, and authorized them to apply the proceeds of three and a 
half millions of bonds, to be issued by the citj^, to the construction of the works. 
The new Board appointed as their Chief Engineer Mr. Thomas J. Whitman, an 
engineer of long experience in hydraulic works. Mr. Kirkwood had declined 
to accept the position again, but consented to act as consulting engineer. 

The plan of their predecessors, with some slight alterations, was adopted 
by the new Board, and after acquiring the necessar}- land the}'' proceeded at 
once with the construction of the works. These works, of which we will give a 



34 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

brief description, are now nearly finished, and will, within two months, furnish 
the city with an abundant supply of pure and wholesome water. 

The water is taken from the Mississippi river, at what is called Bissell's 
Point, close to the northern boundary of the city. It first enters an iron tower, 
80 feet high, sunk to the rock, and provided with gates at different heights, so 
that the water may be taken at any desired depth below the surface. In this 
tower are several strainers and screens to free the water from foreign matter 
before entering the pump-well. From this tower a pipe of 5^ feet interior 
diameter, and 300 feet in length, conducts the water to the pumping engines, 
that are to lift it into the settling reservoirs. These engines are two in number, 
and are duplicate engines of the Cornish-bull class- — steam cylinder 64 inches 
diameter, 12 feet stroke, and plunger 54 inches diameter and 12 feet stroke, 
each of a capacity to pump 17,000,000 gallons iu twenty-four hours. The 
foundations for these engines are of the most substantial character, and to pro- 
vide for the rapidly increasing demand, have been constructed large enough to 
hold three engines, although one engine, working half time, could supply the 
present average demand of the cit}-. To free the water from the sedimentary 
matter, or to settle it, particularly at seasons of high water, four settling 
reservoirs, each 240 by 660 feet, and averaging in depth about 20 feet, have 
been constructed close to the river bank. The water pumped by the low-ser- 
vice engines is, by an appropriate set of gates, admitted at will into either of 
these four reservoirs ; there it is left at perfect rest for twenty-four hours, 
during which time, according to experiments made on the subject, about 
nineteen-twentieths of the sedimentary matter falls to the bottom. During 
the next da}' the water is drawn off by a system of gates so arranged as not to 
etir up the sediment, and allow the water to discharge at all times neur its 
sui'face ; the last three or four feet of water is not drawn off, but on the fourth 
day is allowed to run out into the river through proper sluice-gates, taking 
with it most of the sediment, while the remainder is washed out with the aid 
of an engine, and the reservoir is then ready for a new supply. Thus, each of 
the four reservoirs passes through the cycle of operations during four days. 
The water, after leaving the settling reservoirs, runs b}' gravity through a 
covered conduit about one-half mile long, into a small reservoir near the high- 
sorvice engines, called the clear- water well, and from it through a short conduit 
to the high-service engines. These are two in number, with steam cylinders of 
85 inches diameter and 10 feet stroke, and pump cylinders 50 inches diameter 
and the same stroke. To give an idea of the size of these engines, we will state 
that the walking beam of each engine alone weighs 32 tons, and the fly-wheel 
36 tons ; in fact there are only one or two engines in existence that have a 
larger capacity than these, each of which must be able, according to contract, 
to raise sixteen and a half million gallons to a height of 270 feet within twenty- 
four hours. These engines were built by the Knap Fort Pitt Foundry Com- 
pany, at Pittsburg, Penn. They pump through a force main five miles in 
length, and of 36 and 30 inches diameter, into the storage reservoir on Compton 
Hill. To relieve the engines and force main from any concussion, a stand 
pipe is now in process of construction which, when completed, will have a 
height of 242 feet above the ordinary high water level of the river. It is about 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 35 

ono-hjilf mile from the high-sorvico engines, and will, from its summit, present 
a view of the whole city, and of the river for manj' miles of its course. Before 
reaching the storage reservoir two pipes of 20-inch diameter branch off into 
the city and connect it with the present system of distribution, while a third 
feeder of the same size starts from the storage reservoir so as to secure con- 
tinual motion, and thereby prevent the water from becoming foul. 

The storage reservoir covers about seventeen acres of land, and is built 
near the city boundar}', at the most elevated point within its limits. The 
elevation of its water surface will be twentj'-six feet above the highest street 
grade, and will be ample to supply the upper story of every house in the city. 
We must not omit to mention in this connection that the greatest portion of 
the 8000 tons of largo pipe needed in the construction of these works has been ot 
cast in this city b}' the enterprising firm of Shickle, Harrison & Howard. 

As before stated, the Commissioners expect to have the works ready to 
suppl}' the city within a few months ; and unless some delay impossible to 
anticipate occurs, St Louis will soon be able to boast of having the most 
liberal supply of wholesome water of any city in this country. What bene- 
ficial influence the completion of these works will have on the comfort and 
health of its inhabitants, and on the prosperity of its manufacturing interests, 
may be easily imagined. 



36 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



THE CIVIL AND INDUSTRIAL MISSION OF THE AMERICAN 

PEOPLE. 



I feel more deeply than ever before, that there is nothiiio; in hmnau history which can 
compare in interest with the condition of the American continent on tlie eve of its dis- 
covery and colonization, and its transition into tlie spliere of civilized and Christian 
culture, lookinj? back from our present point of view upon the various stages of this 
transition, as one jrreat operation in the order of Providence. 

Consider it a moment : there it lay upon the surface of the o-lobe, a hemisphere unknown 
to the rest of the world, in all itsvast extent, with all its boundless undeveloped resources, 
not seen as yet by the eye of civilized men, unpossessed but by the simple children of the 
forest. There stretched the iron chain of its mountain barriers, not yet the boundar.y of 
political communities; there rolled its mighty rivers .unprolltably to the sea; there spread 
out the measureless but as j'et wasteful fertility of its uncultivated fields; there towered 
the gloomy majesty of its unsubdued primeval forests; there glittered in the secret caves 
of the earth the priceless treasures of its unsunned gold; and more tiian all that pertains to 
material wealth, there existed the undeveloped capacity of a hundred embryo States; of an 
imperial confederacy of republics, the future abode of intelligent millions, unrevealed as 
yet to the "earnest" but unconscious "expectation" of the elder families of man, dai'kly 
hid by the impenetrable veil of waters. There is to my mind an overwhelming sadness in 
this long insulation of America from the brotherhood of humanity, not inappropriately 
rellected in the melancholy expression of the native races. The boldest keels of Phenicia 
and Carthage had not approached its shores. From the footsteps of the ancient nations 
along the highways of time and fortune— the embattled millions of the old Asiatic despot- 
isms, the iron phalanx of Macedonia, the living crushing machinery of the Roman legion, 
which ground the world to powder — the heavy tramp of barbarous nations from "the pop- 
ulous north;" not the faintest echo had aroused the slumbering west in the cradle of her 
existence. Not a thrill of sympathy had shot across the Atlantic from the heroic adven- 
ture, the intellectual and artistic vitality, the convulsive struggles for freedom, the calam- 
itous downfalls of empire, and the strange new regenerations which fill the pages of 
ancient and medireval liistory. Alike when the Oriental m3'riads, Assja'ian, Chaldean, 
Median, Persian, Bactrian, from the snows of Syria to the Gulf of Ormus, from the Halys 
to the Indus, poured like a deluge upon Greece, and beat themselves to idle foam on the 
sea-girt rock of Salamis and the lovvly plain of Marathon ; when all the kingdoms of the 
earth went down with her own liberties, in Rome's imperial Mai^lstrom of blood and fire — 
and when the banded powers of the west, beneath the ensign of the cross — as the pendulum of 
conquest swung backward — marched in scarcely intermitted procession for three centuries 
to the subjugation of Palestine— the American continent lay undiscovered, lonely and waste. 
That mighty action and reaction upon each other of Europe and America— the grand 
systole and diastole of the heart of the nations — and which now constitutes so much of 
the organized life of both, had not yet begun to pulsate. The unconscious child and 
heir of the ages lay, wrapped in the mantle of futurity, upon the broad and nurturing 
bosom of Divine Providence, and slumbered sei-enely, like the infant of Danae, through 
the storms of fifty centuries. — Edwakd Everett. 

Ninety-four years ago — when the fifty-two signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude 
of their intentions, declared that the united colonies are, and of right ought to 
be, free and independent States — but few of the most sanguine of that day 
dreamed of the extent and greatness which this country would attain in the 
comparatively brief space of a century. But before our independence was 
achieved, the thought of continental empire had already entered the minds of 
many far-seeing persons in this and other lands. "Prophetic Yoices about 
America " were not wanting in numbers to foretell the triumphs of that spirit 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 37 

of adventure which, in the fifteenth century, carried Yasco di Gama around the 
Cape of Good Hope, and Columbus to America. Even the age seemed to be 
instinctive with a better life, and prophets of one land and heroes of another 
were unqualifiedly pointing to America as the place for the future empire of 
the world. 

As early as 1755, John Adams, but twenty years old, and the future states- 
man of Massachusetts, wrote to a friend in the following words: "Soon after 
the reformation a few people came over into this new world for conscience 
sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of 
empire into America. It looks likely to me; for if we can remove the turbulent 
Gallics, our people, according to the most exact computations, will in another 
century become more numerous than in England itself. Should this be the 
case, since we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nation in our hands, 
it will be easy to obtain a mastery of the seas, and the united force of all 
Europe will not be able to subdue us." 

This was the expression of a young school-teacher twenty-one years before 
the Declaration of Independence was made by the colonies. John Adams 
lived to see a system of government founded which, with broad and compre- 
hensive policies, was destined to bring forth upon the American continent a 
nation of grander proportions and greater triumphs in civilization than his 
most enlarged understanding could comprehend. 

His son, John Quincy Adams, at a later day, remarked of his father's letter: 
"Had the political part of it been written by the minister of state of a 
European monarchy, at the close of a long life spent in the government of 
nations, it would have been pronounced worthy of the united wisdom of a 
Burleigh, a Sully, or an Oxenstiern. In one hold outline he has exhibited by 
anticipation a long succession of prophetic history, the fidfillment of which is barely 
yet in progress, responding exactly hitherto to his foresight, but the full accom- 
plishment of which is reserved for after ages." 

Next to John Adams stands Mr. Jefferson, with clear conceptions of the 
future of the American nation. Soon after the treaty with the Kaskaskia 
Indians, by which was acquired a broad belt of territor}^ extending from the 
mouth of the Illinois river to and up the Ohio, Mr. Jefferson first began to look 
with serious consideration to the future greatness of the nation; and that 
ti'eaty, together with the Louisiana purchase, led him to say that he " would 
not give one inch of the waters of the Mississippi river to any nation." And 
with prophetic conception he was again led to say : " When we shall be full on 
this side the Mississippi river we may lay off a range of States on the western 
bank, from the head to the mouth, and so, range after range, advancing com- 
pactly as we multiply." 

In addition to the Louisiana purchase, Texas was annexed in 1845. New 
Mexico, California, and all the territory between the Mississippi river and the 
Pacific ocean has been added within the present century; and in rapid suc- 
cession has State after State come into the Union, and the telegraph, the 
railroad, the steamboat, the printing-press, and the school-house, have followed 
on in this great march of empire, and taken the place of the Indian trail, the 
wigwam, the hunting-ground, and the home of the buffalo. 



38 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

Turn which way wc will, upon this "vast, wide continent," and we see the 
chain of empire being made complete under one all-embracing Constitution. 
Climates of every character, minerals of every quality and value, rivers 
stretching in great lengths and uniting every zone, all combine to give great- 
ness and destiny to this nation, made of the wisdom and excellences of all 
nations, and this people, made of the commingled and regenerate! blood of all 
people. Sublime thought ! Grandest and broadest of our age ; that which 
energizes the individual and regales the futui*e with royal promise. 

At the beginning there were thirteen sparsely populated colonies; now we 
have thirty-seven powerful States, and ten large Territories on the threshold of 
membership. The following statistics, showing the means and degrees by 
which the great Empire of the West has been regarded, will be read with 
thrilling interest by every American citizen. 

New States and Territories — When Admitted. — Under President Wash- 
ington's administration, the following new States were admitted : Yermont, in 
the year 1791; Kentucky, in 1794; Tennessee, in 1796. 

Under President Jefferson's administration, the following new States and 
Territories w^ere added to the Union: Ohio, in the year 1802; Louisiana, 
purchased in 1804. This purchase contained space enough for fifty new States. 
It gave to the United States the entire control of the Mississippi, the outlets 
of which had hitherto been in the hands of a foreign power. Territorial 
governments were organized in Mississippi, Indiana and Louisiana. 

Under President Madison's administration the following addition was made 
to the Union : Indiana, in the year 1816. 

During the administration of President Monroe, the following States were 
added to the Union : Mississippi, in the year 1817 ; Illinois, in 1818; Missouri, 
in 1821; Maine, in 1820; Florida, purchased in 1821. 

Under the administration of President Jackson, the following States were 
admitted : Michigan, in the year 1837; Arkansas, in 1836. 

During the administration of President Polk, the following new States were 
admitted : Texas, in the year 1845 ; Iowa, in 1845 ; Florida, in 1845 ; Wisconsin, 
in 1847 ; California, New Mexico and Utah were bought. 

Under the administration of Presidents Taylor and Filmore, the following 
State was admitted : California, in the year 1850. The following now Territories 
were organized : New Mexico and Utah, in the year 1850; Washington, in 1853. 

Under President Pierce's administration, Arizona was purchased. 

Under the administration of President Buchanan, the following States were 
admitted : Minnesota, in the year 1857 ; Oregon, in 1859 ; Kansas, in 1861 ; 
Dakotah Territory organized in 1861. 

During the administration of President Lincoln, the following States were 
admitted: West Virginia, in the year 1862; Nevada, in 1864. The following 
Territories were also organized: Arizona, in the year 1863; Idaho, in 1863; 
Montana, in 1864. 

Under the administration of President Johnson, the Territory of Wyoming 
was organized in 1868 ; North-western America, or Alaska, was purchased, by 
treaty of May 28, in the year 1867. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 39 

Thus stands the record; to-day, of the American nation, and with a popula- 
tion running from 3,000,000 in the year 1770, up to 42,000,000 in the j-ear 1870. 
Our commerce, in the year 1791, was valued at §52,000,000 imports and 
§19,000,000 exports. Now the imports of merchandise to our country are, at 
gold value, §286,519,344, and our national wealth estimated at §23,400,000,000, 
at an annual increase of $921,700,000. 

Our principal agricultural products are estimated at §3,282,950,000, and our 
entire industrial resources are valued at §4,223,000,000. 

How marvelous the progress of our people ; and with us, instead of colonies 
as with Britain, we acquire strength and greatness by effacing the boundary 
lines of conterminous countries b}^ treaty, and absorb the new regions into the 
Federal famil}', thereby consolidating whenever we extend our national domain 
and power. Turning, then, from the mightiness of the American nation at the 
present time, and looking forward to the future, we are to inquire what will be 
its civil mission, and what the industrial career of its people. What arc to be 
the future honox's and the glory of the Eepublic ? Over what lands is her flag 
yet to float ? To what people are her laws yet to give protection ? What grand 
victories is she yet to achieve in the future empire of the world ? These are 
quesiions now being inspired by the loftiest patriotism of the American states- 
man, and everywhere is growing up in the hearts of the people the thought of 
a transcendent national destiny for the -great Republic of the world. 

But before we consider this branch of the subject, let us consider the essential 
industrial mission of our people, their future commerce, their accumulation of 
wealth, and their future great field of labor. These things are held as being 
pertinent to the subject of the future groat city of the world. 

It is already evident that the industrial mission of our people will, at leasts 
be continental ; that since the landing of the Pilgi'ims upon the narrow belt of 
the Atlantic, and their career in that land which De Tocqueville called an 
" inhospitable clime," there has been one steady march of the American people 
from the Atlantic toward the Pacific. Commerce was the incentive that urged 
on the civil conquest of the continent, that spread the* fleet of boats upon our 
Western waters, directed the ships around Cape Horn and to our Pacific coast, 
and drove the hundreds of thousands of Avagons across the arid plains of our 
continent. 

The civil conquest of our own land is about to be accomplished by the 
meeting of the Eastern and Western columns of American civilization in the 
central plain of the continent, and the advance of the North and South flanking 
columns, which are now rapidly tending to the center. But this civil conquest 
accomplished, what remains for the restless, pioneering and homeless Americans 
to do ? They cannot stay within the boundary lines of our great Eepublic when 
other lands furnish a field for adventure, speculation, and skill. Then it is we 
arc to look beyond to the higher aspects of the industrial mission of our people. 
To our continent belong five systems of water navigation : Fii'st, the Atlantic 
Ocean system ; second, the Eiver system ; third, the Lake system ; fourth, the 
Gulf system; and fifth, the Pacific Ocean system — the canal system is only 
auxiliaiy. Nature gave these systems. 



40 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

After tliora comes a mightier system of commercial facilities — the railways 
civilization has given to man. This system supersedes oceans, lakes and 
rivers and this system must control, in the future, the higher commercial and 
industrial destinies of all people j while the ocean systems of commerce are 
destined to become the most obsolete of all these facilities afforded to man. Of 
the five water systems of navigation belonging to our continent, the river 
system is by far the most valuable, and, with the Gulf, is destined to control the 
forei""n commerce of our continent; and both, united to our railway system, 
fixes the industrial mission of our people from henceforth to the far-off years 
of the future. 

Civilization is rapidl}^ reversing the order of nature. To the barbarian and 
semi-barbarian nations, the oceans were facilities for exchanging their commerce, 
the land an obstacle ; but civilization is about to reverse the order and transform 
the land into a facility, and the oceans into obstacles. The car will take the 
place of the ship, and the land of the ocean, and commerce will find its goal in 
continental development ; and not, as heretofore, beyond distant oceans and 
amonf the islands of the sea. The railway systems of continents and the 
world are soon to be the great rule of commerce, while ships will be the 
exception. Already the maritime nations of the earth foresee their doom in the 
comino- reversal of the order of things, and are struggling to hold the seas 
supreme over the land, the ships over the cars ; hence their aggressions upon the 
land in their haste to sever continents, that the ships may pass through and 
speed on to the uttermust parts of the earth. 

But before we further consider the railway system, as destined to control 
and direct the future industry of the world, let us go back and consider for one 
moment the commerce of the globe, about w^hich the nations are now striving 
to control. Since the discovery of America, perhaps there has been no 
artificial improvement to which so much importance has been attached in its 
bearing upon the future commerce of the world as the construction of the 
Pacific railway, and no man better vindicated the importance of such a facility 
across the continent than the Hon. Thomas 11. Benton, in the many speeches 
he made from time to time in favor of its construction ; and from one we make 
the following pointed quotation touching the great importance of the road in 
its bearing upon the commerce of the world. Hear his plea: "I enforce 
another advantage, not so immediate, but obvious to the thinking mind, and 
important to America, Europe, and Asia; and which, in changing a channel of 
rich commerce, may have its effect upon the wealth and power of nations, and 
operate a change in the maritime branch of national wars : I allude to the East 
India trade, already incidentally touched upon, and the change of its channel 
from the water to the land, and the effect of that change in nullifying the 
maritime supremacy of naval powers by making continents, instead of oceans, 
the great theaters of international commerce. No events in the history of 
nations have had a greater effect on the relative wealth and power of nations 
than the changes w^hich have been going on for near three thousand years in 
the channels of Asiatic commerce. During that time nations have risen and 
fallen, as they possessed or lost that commerce. Events announce the forth- 
coming of a new change. The land becoming a facility and the ocean an 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 41 

obstacle to foreign trade, must have an effect upon Europe, conterminous upon 
Asia, and upon America, separated from it by a western sea over which no 
European power can dominate. I confine myself to the American branch of 
the question, and glance at the past to get an insight into the future. 1 look 
to former channels of this Asiatic commerce — their changes — the effects of the 
changes — an 1 infer from what has been, what may be — from what is, to what 
will be : 

"I. The Phoenician Route. — Tyre, queen of cities, was its first emporium. 
The commerce of the East centered there before the captivity of the Jews in 
Bab3-lon, upwards of six hundred years before the coming of Christ. Nebuchad- 
nek-zar. King of Babylon, conquered Tyre and razed it to its foundations ; but he 
was no statesman — merely a destroyer — and did not found a rival city ; and 
the continuance of the India trade quickly restored the queen of cities to all 
her former degree of prominence and power. Alexander the Great conquered 
her again. He was a statesman, and knew how to build up, as well as how to 
pull down, and looked to commerce for exalting and enriching that magnificent 
empire which his war genius was conquering. He founded a rival city on the 
coast of Egypt, better adapted to the trade ; and the prophecy of Ezekiel became 
fulfilled on Tyre : she became a place for fishermen to dry their nets. 

"II. The Jewish Route. — In the time of Solomon and David, the Jews 
succeeded to the East India trade, made it a leading subject of their policy, and 
became rich and powerful upon it. Jerusalem rivaled Nineveh and Babylon • 
and Palmyra, a mere thoroughfare in the trade, in the midst of a desert, became 
the seat of power and opulence, of oriental magnificence, and the center of the 
arts and sciences. The Jews lost that trade, and Jerusalem became as a widow 
in the wilderness, and Palmyra a den for foxes and Arabs, 

"III. The Alexandrian Route. — This was opened b}* Alexander the Great; 
its course along the canal of Alexandria to the Nile — up that river to Coptus — 
thence across the desert with camels to the Dead Sea — and down that sea to 
the neighboring coasts of Asia and Africa — a route chosen with so much 
judgment that it made Alexandria and Egypt the seats of wealth, power, 
learning, the arts and sciences; and continued to be the channel of trade for a 
period of eighteen hundred years — from three hundred years before Christ to 
the close of the fifteenth century — when the Portuguese discovery of the passage 
by the Cape of Good Hope annihilated the Egyptian route, and transferred to 
Lisbon the glories of Alexandria. But not without a great contest. Solyman 
the Magnificent, then Sultan of the Turkish Empire, fought the Portuguese for 
the dominion of routes — carried on long and bloody wars to break up the Cape 
of Good Hope route, assisted by the Venetians, because of their interest in the 
Egyptian route, and menacing Christendom — this alliance of Christian and 
Saracen against Christians — according to the Abbe Eaynal, indorsed by the 
philosophic historian Robertson, with the ' most illiberal and humiliating servi- 
tude that ever oppressed polished nations.' From this calamity Christendom 
was saved by the valor of the Portuguese and ttfe talents of their renowned 
commander, Albuquerque ; but the contest shows the value which all nations 
placed on the possession of this trade ; and the reversed conditions of Alex- 
c 



42 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

andria and Lisbon— of Eg^'pt and Portugal — upon the defeat of the Turks and 
Venetians, shows that that value was not over-estimated. 

"IV, The Constantitioplitan Route. — This became fully established in the 
time of the Greek Empire, and during the two hundred j^ears of the Crusade 
irruptions, and to which the enlightened part of the Crusaders greatl^y contrib- 
uted. For, while a religious frenzy operated upon the masses, the extension of 
their trade with India was the systematic, persevering and successful policy of 
all liberal and enlightened minds, availing themselves of that frenzy to promote 
and establish the commerce upon the possession of which the supremacy of 
nations depended. It was fully established; and the long and tedious transit 
across the Black Sea to the mouth of the Phases, up that river to a portage of 
five days to the Cyrus, down that river to the Caspian Sea, across it to the 
mouth of the Oxus, up it 900 miles to Samarcand, once Alexandria, the limit 
of Alexander's march to the north-east; and after this long travel, an overland 
journey of 90 days on the Bactrian camel, to the confines of China, commenced. 
Such was this extended route. Yet it was upon this route, so extended and 
perilous, that Europe was supplied with East India goods for several centuries ; 
the profits of the trade being so great that after its arrival at Constantinople, 
it could still come on to Italy, and even round to Bruges (Brussels) and to 
Antwerp. It was upon this route that the Genoese established their great 
commerce, gaining permanent establishments with great privileges at Constan- 
tinople (its suburb Pera) and in that Crimea, then resplendent with wealth, 
since impoverished, now the scene of bloody strife ; and of which the issue 
would be fortunate, if it restored the Crimea to what it was when Caffa was 
as celebrated as Sebastopol is now, and celebrated for streams of commerce 
instead of streams of blood. But to this route of Constantinople the Cape of 
Good Hope passage became as fatal as it was to that of Alexandria, 

" V. The Ocean Route. — It has been the line of the East India trade since the 
close of the fifteenth century, and must have continued to be so forever if a 
marvel had not been wrought, and the land become the facility — the ocean the 
obstacle — to commerce. All the powers that have land for distant communi- 
cations must now betake themselves to the steam car. Why contend with ships 
for the dominion of the sea, when both the ships and the sea are to be super- 
seded ? Take the case of Eussia. She has been 150 years building up a navy 
— to become useless the first day it is wanted. Not only useless, but an 
encumbrance and a burden — requiring impregnable posts, and vast armies, and 
murderous battles to protect and save it — save it from going to swell the 
enemy's fleet, and be turned against its builders. Why build any more ships 
when there is the land to carry commerce, without protection, to every part of 
Europe, and to America by Behring's Straits, rendering fleets inoperative and 
harmless? But I confine myself to our own commerce and our own land. 
There is the road to India, pointing west, half the way upon our own land, and 
the rest upon a peaceable sea washing our shores, but separated from Europe 
by the whole diameter of the earth. Can we not cease wrangling over an 
odious subject of domestic contention, and go to work upon the I'oad which is 
to exalt us to the highest rank among nations, and make us mistress of the 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 43 

richest gem in the diadem of commerce ? Can we not cease contention, and 
seize the supreme prize which is glittering before us ? Make the road ; and in 
its making, make our America the thoroughfare of Orient commerce — throw 
back the Cape and the Horn routes to what Tyre became when Alexandria was 
founded, and what Alexandria became when the Cape of Good Hope was 
doubled — making Europe submissive and tributary to us for a transit upon this 
route, and dispensing us from the maintenance of the fleets which the ocean 
commerce demands for its protection." 

The railway is built, and what in Benton's day was an extended wilderness 
of countr}^ from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean, is now States and 
populous Territories, with rapidly growing cities, rich in wealth. Yet the 
road is not the wonderful thoroughfare for the commerce of distant nations 
that earlier enterprise anticipated. Nor will it ever be. Every foot of railway 
built the more and more confirms the continental destiny of the American people ; 
and by the business of this road being absorbed by the local interests of the people 
at each end and along its line, and the failure to revolutionize the commerce of 
the woi'Id, the spirit of adventure has gone again to the ocean, and seeks new 
channels through the Isthmuses, Suez and Darien. By these highways the com- 
merce of the world is again sought to be controlled. In this contest America 
again has the advantage, in climate, ocean and distance, as the following tes- 
timony of Mr. Nourse, of the United States navy, given in his pamphlet on the 
Maritime Canal of Suez, will assure; "for while Suez is the center of the old 
continent, Darien is the center of the great ocean — the Atlantic-Pacific, of the 
water as well as of the land of our globe. For this fact is to be remembered, 
that — 

" From the Gulf of Mexico all the great commercial markets of the world 
are down hill. A vessel bound from that Gulf to Europe places herself in the 
current of the Gulf Stream and drifts along with it at the rate, for part of the- 
way, of eighty or a hundred miles a day. If her destination be Eio, or India,, 
or California, her course is the same as far north as the island of Bermuda. 

" And when there shall be established a commercial thoroughfare across the 
Isthmus, the trade winds of the Pacific will place China, India, New Holland,, 
and all the islands of that ocean, down hill also from this sea of ours. In that 
case Europe must pass by our very doors on the great highway to the markets 
both of the East and the West Indies. This beautiful Mesopotamian sea is in a 
position to occupy the summit level of navigation, and to become the- great 
commercial receptacle of the world. Our rivers run into it, and float down 
with their currents the surplus articles of merchandise that are produced upon 
their banks. Arrived with them upon the bosom of this gx'and marine basin 
there are the currents of the sea and the winds of heaven so arranged by nature 
that they drift it and waft it down hill and down stream to the gi'eat market- 
places of the world." 



44 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ COMPARED WITH THAT OF DARIEN. 

Before taking up our journey, then, to Suez, lot us look for a moment at tho 
two IsthmusoB, side by side. Whoever easts the eye on a map of the great 
continents will hardly fail to mark some striking peculiarities common to both. 
One of these is the peninsular form of each, and its tending southward, either 
in a mass, as Africa and vSouth America, or in broken peninsulas, as Southern 
Asia and Europe. A second peculiarity is tho existence of island groups on the 
right hand of the southern limits of each continent; as the West Indies and the 
Falkland group, southeast of America and Australasia, southeast of the various 
peninsulas into which Asia is broken. A third and equally noticeable common 
mark appears in that narrow neck of land which, in each continent, joins the 
land masses and separates great seas — the two Isthmuses which we are con- 
sidering. In the Eastern hemisphere, the land mass of Asia, Europe is thus 
joined to Africa by a neck of less than a hundred miles in extent. In tho West, 
the great American Isthmus — of about fourteen hundred miles in its full extent 
from Tehuantepec to the Atrato river — at one point narrows itself to even a 
less breadth than Suez. In tho country of Darien proper it is scarcely more 
than thirty miles wide. And this further point of interest may be again noted 
on the world-map, that the Isthmus of Suez is but the center of the old conti- 
nents, Asia, Europe, and Africa, while the American Isthmus is the center of 
oceans as well as of countries. The commercial value of this will be seen at a 
glance, and it belongs to the Isthmus of Darien. 

The chief practical point of difference, in consideiing the American Isthmus 
and tho African, with the view of opening up communication across eoch, is 
their opposite geological formation. Suez is an arid, sandy, longitudinal dcpres- 
pion, of which more than one-half is on a level with, or below, tho Red Sea and 
the Mediterranean. The American Isthmus strikingly contrasts itself, in its 
being chiefly a ridge of the Great Cordilleras. Its counter-slope toward the 
Pacific is not in most places found to bo extended. To cross the Isthmus of 
Suez is to encounter its drift sands, but scarcely an elevation whoso moan 
height is above fifty feet. To cross Central America is to encounter, in Hon- 
duras, elevations of at least two thousand nine hundred feet ; or, in Panama, 
the line of the lowest level as yet found, with any certainty, elevations from 
four hundred and fifty to two hundred and seventy feet. The summit ridge_, 
on the Panama railroad, is two hundred and eighty-seven feet above tho mean 
tide-level of the Atlantic. 

Tho contrast between tho two Isthmuses is as marked from a historic point 
of view. Suez has witnessed tho tramp of many armies, and the noise of busy 
trade around cities now wholly lost beneath the sands. The narrow neck of 
Darien has scarcely a historic record. M. do Lesseps, the engineer of tho Suez 
canal, remarks: ''We cannot approach history without touching upon Suez; 
the Bible gives its early record; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the patriarchs, 
crossed it; Moses was rescued from a branch of the Nile running through it. 
Afterward the third station of his rescued people was Ethan, which still keeps 
its name. 'Pihahiroth,' one of their encampments, meaning in Hebrew the 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 45 

' Bay of Koeds/ has its name preserved by the Arabs in the track near Lake 
Timsah. Tradition points to the same locality as a resting place for the Holy 
Family when fleeing from Herod. The Persians fought upon the plains around 
Pelusium, near the modern Port Said. Alexander's troops thronged the Isth- 
mus ; Csesar disembarked on this coast ; Pompey was there assassinated." 

Alongside of such a record the American Isthmus has, as yet, but little to 
show. But little of any record of the races within it before the Spanish occu- 
pancy ; and but little even since that date except the heroic crossing of Balboa, 
the murderous visits of the Buccaneers, and the struggle for colonization by 
such noble men as Paterson and Campbell. Yet may not this Isthmus, when 
she shall have become the highway of nations, more than compensate for the 
past by her greater instrumentality in promoting peaceful intercourse, in civil- 
izing and christianizing her neighboring districts and the East? There seems 
surely a common point as regards both Isthmuses, vitally affecting the future 
of each hemisphere, centering in the opening up of world-intercourse across 
each. There seems also some natural indications that each will permit such 
opening. Their very narrowness suggests it. 

Certiainly the great interests of civilization loudly call for such open and easy 
intercourse. For to say that these narrow necks jom two land masses is to use 
language commonly held and expressive of a physical or geological fact. But, 
commercially, the opposite is true. They separate men. They are the bar to 
the world's trade, and to the fuller extending of the accompanying blessings of 
civilization. 

The Isthmus of Darien, now crossed by the Panama railroad, proves, by her 
busy throngs from the two sides of the great Pacific and from distant New 
Zealand and Australia, what she will be, and what more successfully she can do 
for humanity, when a yet readier water passage shall be opened. 

The Isthmus of Suez, until fully opened for heavy freighting, will continue to 
make necessary the hundred-day voyage around the stormy cape. For, how- 
over readily the traveler bears the heavy expense of a shorter overland route 
by the railroad from Alexandria to the Eed Sea, the freights of commerce boar 
neither this nor the yet greater disavantages of trans-shipments. The bulk of 
trade still follows the route discovered nearly four centuries ago. It awaits the 
completion in full of the maritime canal which shall in fact join Asia to Africa 
and to Europe. Let us compare two distance-saving tables on this point. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



Distance-saving Tables, or Comparison of Routes, (A) by Suez Canal with 
EouTE BY Cape op Good Hope, (B) by Darien Canal with Eoute by 
Cape Horn. 



The distances are in most cases taken either from a table prepared by the 
Bureau Navigation, Navy Department ; or from Berghaus' Chart, or th« 
tables of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. 

A — Table of the Saving in Distances for Trade passing through the Suez Canal 
to mhay, a central point in the Indian Ocean. 



poets 



to 60 



8t. Petersburg 

Amsterdam 

Liverpool 

London 

Cadiz. 

Lisbon 

Havre 

Marseilles 

Trieste 

Constantinople. 

New York 

New Orleans.... 



in 
II 





p«=i 


o 


si 


6,550 


3,700 


5,950 


3,100 


5,900 


3,050 


5,950 


3,100 


5,200 


2,224 


5,350 


2,500 


5,800 


2,824 


5,6.50 


2.374 


5.960 


2,340 


6,100 


1,800 


6,200 


3,761 


6,450 


3,724 



2,850 
2,850 
2,850 
2,850 
2,976 
2,850 
2,976 
3,276 
3,620 
4,300 
2,439 
2,720 



Jg-S 



<u 












111 

100 

100 

100 

88 

90 

98 

95 

100 

103 

104 

109 



W.^ 



62i 

52 

52 

52 
37f 

42 

48 

40 

39J 

30^ 

63 

63 



(a) The saving between London and the ports on the east coast of Asia may 
be stated at about 4,800 miles ; the saving from London to Melbourne, Aus" 
tralia, at about 3,000 miles. 

(b) Lesseps, in his original memoir (1855), estimates the saving between th« 
East and West to be an average of 3,000 leagues. 

(c) The French engineers, in 1801, estimated that the Suez Canal would save 
one -third of the distance and one-fifth of the time in navigating from France 
to India. 

(d) The saving between England and India may be stated at 49 per cent. ; 
between France, Southern Eussia, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, at 52 per cent. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



47 



B — Table showing the Saving in Distance for Trade passing through the Darien 

Canal. 



PORTS. 



New York to Valparaiso 

Liverpool to Valparaiso 

New York to Callao 

Liverpool to " 

New York to Honolulu 

Liverpool to " 

New York to San Francisco.... 
Liverpool to ' ' 

New York to Jeddo 

New York to Shanghai 

New York to Hong Kong 

By Cape Good Hope 

New York to Melbourne 

Liverpool to " 

New York to Sydney 

Liverpool to '" 

Havre to San Francisco 



Distance. 


s 
u 
o 
H 


a 
«1 


o 


P§ 


>) 


►►.y 


« 


n 


8,720 


4,800 


9.100 


7,500 


10,020 


3,550 


10,400 


6,200 


13,530 


6,850 


13,780 


9,500 


13,610 


5,310 


13,665 


7,9G0 


16,700 


10,200 


14,500 


11,100 


17,420 


11,850 


14,015 




12,720 


10,400 


13,3.50 


12,600 


12,870 


9.950 


12,850 


12,400 


13,640 


7,900 



3,920 
1,600 
6,470 

4,200 
6,280 
4,280 
8,300 
5,705 
6,500 
3,400 
5,570 

2,320 
750 

2,920 
450 

5,740 



These estimates, which are best understood by having the eye either on a 
globe, or upon the world, on Mcrcator's projection, will suffice, at present, as 
points of comparison in proof of the interest which for so many years has held 
many of the ablest minds to the problem of canalizing both Isthmuses. Among 
these the late Henry Wheaton, United States Minister to the Court of Berlin in 
1845, deserves high place. In the midst of his official duties ho found time for 
the study of the subject in its widest range, and addressed an elaborate dis- 
patch to our Secretary of State, discussing with marked ability the canalizing 
of each of the Isthmuses, and developing the results to be expected therefrom. 
This was before the foundation of our Pacific States had been laid. (See 
Lawrence's foot notes, Wheaton's International Law, and Ex. Doc. 29th Con- 
gress, 21st session.) 

The following additional tables, kindly furnished by Mr. F. A. Walker, Chief 
of the Statistical Bureau, United States Treasury Department, will be found in 
place here. 

(A corresponding table, made by the friends of the Suez Canal, would claim, 
in brief, an annual tonnage of 6,000,000, from almost the outset of the opening 
of navigation, with a steady increase.) 



48 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



Table showing the Trade of England that would pass through the Darien Canal, 

if now finished, taken from the Official Returns for the year 1867. 

Countries Traded with. Exports and Imports. Tonnage. 

Half of Mexico $3,014,005 22,401 

Half of Central America 2,642,650 7,652 

Half of New Granada 8,613,995 11,019 

Chili 35,004,090 220,771 

Peru 25,926,110 209,401 

Ecuador 77.5,715 2,725 

China 85,975,900 197,288 

.Java , 6,812,765 30,703 

Singapore 17,813,505 123,436 

Austraha and New Zealand 67,475,780 264,815 

Islands of the Pacific 236.730 2,762 

California 14,239,970 127,086 



$268,531,115 1,219,762 

Value of ships, $50 per ton 60,988,100 

Total value $329,519,215 

Table showing the Trade of France that woidd pass through the Darien Canal, 
if now finished, taken from the Official Returns for the year 1865. 

Countries Traded with. Exports and Imports. Tonnage. 

Half of Mexico $ 7,641,470 34,672 

Half of Central America 2,012,162 10,721 

Half of New Granada 1,905,260 6,703 

Chili 10,994,595 25,263 

Peru 11,870,240 49,201 

Ecuador 556,923 2,283 

China 13,618,446 18.863 

Java 860,227 3,749 

Sinfrapore 

AustraUa , 908,933 5,217 

Islands of the Pacific „ 

California 1,607,929 8,587 



Value of cargoes $52,576,185 165,259 

Value of ships, at $50 per ton „ 8,262,950 

Total value $60,839,135 

Table showing the Trade of the United States that would pass through the 

Darien Canal. 

Countries Traded with. Imports and Exports. Tonnage. 

X0«0. X868. 

Dutch East Indies $ 2,080,031 1.3,283 

British Austr.ilia and New Zealand 809,037 44,624 

British East Indies . 9 432 214 107 977 

¥rHi ^I^^"^^^? \ •••• 5,'999,'967 72,'930 

Half of Central America 2,109,778 41 520 

i^hili 3',272',467 49^078 

Peru.......... 3,059,755 78,429 

bandwich Islands 2,083,484 56,603 

VV""*^ •;•;.;• •/,• ; 25,584,853 107,884 

Halt of New Granada ^... 5,186,025 308,220 

Value of cargoes..... $59,617,611 880,548 

Value of ships, at $50 per ton 44 027,400 

Total value of ships and cargoes $ 103,045,011 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 49 

This brief comparison of the Isthmuses will at present suffice. The tables 
have been brought side by side, with the design of enlisting deeper interest in 
the proposed survey for our own Darien Canal. Its importance can scarcely 
be over-estimated ; and the interest in it, and effort to bo enlisted for its con- 
struction, may bo quickened by such comparisons as we are now making. 

For it is to be kept steadily before Ihe eye, that the termini of the two great 
transit routes, in the two hemispheres, are the radiant points for the great trunk 
lines of the world's commerce, viz. : (1) From the Persian Gulf, or Suez, east 
to Bombay, Calcutta and Australia, and froni Port Said west to all parts of 
Europe, North and South America ; and (2) from Darien east to Europe, and 
west to Asia, South American west coast, and Australia. 

Wo now turn from these comparisons of the American route, as yet unsur- 
vej'od, but challenging the genius of exploration and of engineering, to the 
record of the present finished route in the East ; again saying, "May the Suez 
Canal secure our own." 

That the English are beginning to comprehend the state of the case, may be 
inferred from an article on the Suez Canal in a recent number of Once a Week, 
from which we extract the following passages : 

"That the Suez Canal will bring about a revolution in the commercial world 
is certain; the extent of the revolution must be left to future times to decide. 

" With the new direct passage to the East, is there not every probability of 
the ports of North Africa and of South Europe becoming the groat commercial 
emporiums of the future? The way is now clear from North America to Hin- 
dostan, and, with the exception of the detour made by the Eed Sea, the course 
is a direct one. The Mediterranean lies in the lino between East and West, and 
may be said to connect both. What an enviable position ! On the one hand 
America, flourishing, 5'oung and active ; on tho other India, surpassingly 
wealth}', and itself the connecting link whoso shores, abounding with good 
ports, are almost everywhero the fringes of good and largely-yielding soil. 
Now is tho time for Trieste and Marseilles to bestir themselves. Tho golden 
opportunity is offered, and the earliest bidder will obtain tho greatest bargains. 
Who knows where will bo the London, the pre-eminent commercial city of 
future times? It would bo odd, indeed, if, contrary to all modern anticipa- 
tions, it should not be in North America, but in one of tho oldest districts of 
the Old World. The Old World is very much larger than the New, is as rich, 
or richer, in minerals, and contains a greater j)roportion of richly-productive 
soil. After consideration, then, it should not bo surprising if tho commercial 
supremacy which successively left Tyre, Eome and Venice, should desert Lon- 
don — not for Now York, but for some place on tho ancient coast of the 
Mediterranean. Should this really happen (of course, it is at present a mere 
speculation, and a few years will decide the probability or improbability of its 
ultimate occurrence), there can bo no doubt that the vSuez Canal will have been 
tho great, if not the sole, cause of the regeneraDion of the world of the ancients. 

"Let England not bo blind to the probable influences of the Suez Canal. It 
behooves her particular!}-, of all the nations of tho world, to be on the alert 
even for events which it may take centuries to culminate, for she has the 



50 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

greatest interests at stake. She is now on the top of the pinnacle of glory, 
supported by the richest possessions, the most flourishing colonies, and the 
greatest commerce of the world. 

"The greatness of England may bo said to have had its foundation in the 
discovery of the Cape route to India. This event developed the energies of 
the nations of Western Europe, and its effects were almost immediately felt in 
the rapid rise of Spain, then of Portugal, next of Holland, and lastly of 
England. They are all nations possessing extensive coasts open to the Atlantic, 
and therefore received the benefits of the newlj'-found way to the large 
world. The discovery converted the Mediterranean into a comparatively small 
expanse of water, shut out of the wider world ; and, ever since, the countries 
on its shores have gradually lessened in importance; England has become rich, 
while Eastern Spain, and Italj^, and Greece have become poor — because, by the 
Cape route, she is nearer to China and the East Indies. The fact stands on 
adamant. The inference is as true. The Capo route is, or will be in a few 
years, worthless for communication with the East, the way by Suez being the 
nearer and the safer. Our Eastern commerce must decline, as assuredly as 
that of South Europe will increase. Such must be the case, even should we 
continue our hold on India; and wo cannot hope to preserve an ascendency 
over three hundred millions of foreigners, if we begin to lose prestige in the 
world. 

"Eegarding Eastern commerce, a vigorous activity on the part of the Medi- 
terranean States will be accompanied by a comparative decline on that of 
England; in other words, the salvation of the Mediterranean will be the ruin 
of England. But, some people will very naturally remark, we shall still have 
the American commerce in our hands, and the resources and wealth of America 
are worthy of comparison with those of the East. Granted ; but the retention 
of half a possession is no recompense for the loss of the other half. We may, 
however, cull some consolation from the philosophic reflection that half a goo<l 
thing is better than none at all; and in that light we should be thankful for our 
own fortune. America is now our last resource, and will be the friend to save us 
from utter bankruptcy and ruin. 

"If the Suez Canal had been completed a century or more ago, before the 
resources of the New World had been known and appreciated, there is much 
ground of probability in the supposition that our country would have sunk into 
respectable insignificance, and that the progress of America in civilization and 
prosperity would have been far less rapid than it has been under existing cir- 
cumstances. So widely difi'erent must have been the course of events, and so 
gigantic are the interests concerned, that the subject fills the mind with amaze- 
ment. Whole countries, nay, continents, would have been materially affected, 
and not merely a British colony at the Cape of Good Hope, as many persons 
erroneously suppose. We have, indeed, as Englishmen, much cause for con- 
gratulation upon the long delay in removing the barrier between European and 
Asiatic seas, until the present hour, when the productions of America have 
been so generally and so abundantly developed. We cling to America as to the 
last hope of a sinking man. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 51 

" These are gloomy forebodings for the future of our country. They will 
undoubtedly prove true in the end, unless England shakes off the foolish apathy 
with regard to foreign affairs which seems to have taken possession of her 
during these last three or four years. She must not be content to confine her 
whole attention to her own island home, if she has the ambition still to be a 
power in the world. She must not selfishly withdraw her support from her 
young colonies, who need her assistance now, but who will be her strong 
defenders or aiders in the future. She must not allow France or any other 
power again to undertake the grandest enterprise of the day. On the con- 
trary, she must be ever bold and fearless — active and energetic in every quarter 
of the globe — resentful of every injury, and foremost in every great work. 
She has been overreached by the latest French movement Let her apply a 
lesson from it, and avert the dangers now threatening her, by excavating a 
channel across the Isthmus of Panama. Let her begin this great work imme- 
diately — not a moment should be lost — and the rich Eastern and Southeastern 
lands of Asia will be within easy distance of her by a new route in a direct 
line across the united Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 

"By this means only is the speedy destruction of our commercial interests 
and of our existence as a great independent nation to be prevented. The 
Panama Canal is the natural sequence of the successful piercing of the Isthmus 
of Suez. Nay, more — it is absolutely necessary for the safet}^ of England. 
Apart from its necessity to this country particularly, it will be extremely 
beneficial to the whole world in general, by reason of its inspiring fresh enter- 
prising spii'it of energy in men^ and engendering emulations and instincts 
of progressive activity in nations. There is every reason, every necessity in 
the world, for the work to be commenced, and that quickly. The present is 
the golden opportunity — procrastination may snatch it away." 

Then is it not manifest from this general consideration of the subject that 
we, too, of the New World have a Mediterranean Sea in our Gulf of Mexico 
and Caribbean Sea ? And in the future growth and organization of the world's 
commerce, can we not reasonably expect that thousands of ships from the 
Atlantic and Pacific — from the combined fleets of the nations of the earth — 
will associate in rendezvous in that world's commercial place which those two 
waters are destined to afford ? Every consideration in our geography and 
resources, as well as the rapid tendency to a complete organization of the 
world's commerce, point to this one great fact. The Mediterranean of the New 
"World is just as surely to supersede^ in commercial importance, the Mediter- 
ranean of the Old World, as does the civilization of the New World supersede 
the civilization of the Old. Our Mediterranean will yet have its Suez Canal. 
It has its new Rome, its Constantinople, its Genoa and its Yenice; its Smyrna 
and Palermo. In short, to the Mediterranean of the Old World belongs 
scarcely anything of nature or civilization that does not belong to the Mediter- 
ranean of the New World. Whether in oceans East and West, or whether in 
continents North and South ; or whether in islands and cities, in climates and 
peoples — we may turn to the long line of historic scenes which have been 
enacted upon the shores of the Mediterranean of the Old World through 
thousands of years of man's history, growth, and the rise and fall of nations, 



52 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

tho commercial greatness, and the diftusion of the arts and ("ciences — and there 
seems to be reserved in the future, and to be enacted upon the shores of tho 
Mediterranean of the New Woi'ld, still mightier deeds in commerce, in art, in 
Peace ! Why may we not anticipate a superior and more advanced rehearsal 
of history? Even now it is being enacted and must go on. 

Thus, seeing our advantage upon the ocean, and the certainty of the world's 
commerce seeking our markets through the Gulf of Mexico, and from thence 
to tho great cities in the central plain, where it will be exchanged, distributed 
and consumed, wo return to tho railway system and consider tho special indus- 
trial mission of our people. We have already said that the railway systems, in 
their more mature development, will be dominant over tho water systems afford- 
ing commercial facilities, and will, in the future, control the industry of the 
world, and therefore the industrial mission of all considerable peoples who build 
for themselves these most useful agencies that the arts have produced. America 
is the great railway .continent of the world, and the essential industrial mission 
of tho American people will conform to their great railway system. Hence, 
their mission must be essentially continental ; and now that the continent from 
East to West has been spanned by a great trunk line, and an entire line of 
battle formed from ocean to ocean in tho civil conquest of tho continent, a 
new movement is already begun which is destined to extend our railway sys- 
tem to the Gulf, west of tho Mississippi river, and into Mexico, and from 
thence through Central to South America; and thus will be indicated the 
industrial mission of our people. They will go forth, as from the beginning, 
following the track of the ancient civilization across tho continent in a south- 
westerl}' direction, and thus follow on in their mission, carrying their arts and 
their arms into Mexico, and from thenco to Central and South America — ever 
mai'ching in unity and order with the railways, as tho groat vitalizers of their 
industry' and commerce. 

Let us turn now to a final consideration of tho civil mission of our people, 
for this, too, can not be regarded otherwise than a groat consideration in tho 
world's civilization. Are wo to remain one people — the great republican 
nation of tho world? What civil mission through tho national life is our 
people yet to fulfill? What beneficent influences are they yet to extend upon 
the nations and the people of the earth ? 

Said Carnot, the great French statesman, when speaking of Eepublics : 
" One only has been the work of philosophy, and that is tho United States." 
The universal judgment of enlightened mankind corroborates tho truth of this 
statement. When our fathers appealed to the Universal Judge of tho world 
in vindication of tho rights and independence of the colonies, they opened a 
way that no man can shut — a way for the free exorcise of the inherent rights 
of all mankind, through the rolling ages of the future. They established a 
government that interposed " no restraint but those laws which are tho same 
to all, and no distinction but that which a man's moi'it may originate. " 
They established a union of independent colonies, which, yielding to an 
irresistible national attraction, sought a new life in becoming a part of the 
great whole. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 53 

Then realizing the character of a nation ju8t born, we can readily apprehend 
what good it is destined to subserve in the civil interests of mankind, and over 
what lands its laws will seek dominion. Said the Hon. Charles Sumner, in 
speaking of the final supremacy of our constitution over all of North 
America: "The end is certain; nor shall we Avait long for its mighty fulfill- 
ment. Its beginning is the establishment of peace at home, through which 
the national unity shall become manifest. This is the first step. The rest will 
follow. In the procession of events it is now at hand, and he is blind who 
does not discern it. From the frozen sea to the tepid waters of the Mexican 
Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the whole vast Continent, smiling with 
outstretched prairies, where the coal fields below vie with the infinite corn 
fields above — teeming with iron, copper, silver and gold — filling fast with a free 
people, to whom the telegraph and steam are constant servants — breathing 
already with schools, colleges, and libraries — interlaced by rivers which aro 
great highways — studded with inland seas where fleets are sailing, and ' poured 
round all old ocean's ' constant tides, with tributary commerce and still 
expanding domain. Such will be the great Eepublic, one and indivisible, with 
a common Constitution, a common Liberty, and a common Glory." 

Said the Hon. William H. Seward: "This Union has not j-et accomplished 
what good for mankind was manifestly designed by Him who appoints the 
seasons, and prescribes the duties of States and Empires. It shall continue 
and endure. No other government can exist here." 

With these eloquent declarations wo at once ascend to the grandeur of the 
subject, and behold the great Eepublic, actuated by the inevitable tendency of 
power and profit, moving forward to complete dominion over North America. 
The boundary lines of Canada and those of Mexico will soon be effaced, and 
the new regions absorbed into the Federal family. Beyond this will follow 
Central America, the West India and Sandwich Islands, and still bej'ond South 
America will furnish a new field of industry and civil government for the 
redundant population of our Continental Eepublic ; and strengthened by the 
universality of one language and one law, the power and civil mission of our 
people will go forth from one people to another, until Old England, "proud 
and potent as she now appears," shorn of her colonies, will, like a widowed 
mother, kindred in language and religion, but weak like the shorn Samson, 
supplicate the young child, America, for sustenance and protection. Thus 
will America move forward, until, in political power and prestige, she 
becomes the New Rome of the world, and in industry and civilization the 
Chinese or Celestial Empire of the earth — uniting at once, in universal rela- 
tionship and in the highest possible order of development, and under one con- 
stitution, the representative characters of the two mightiest historic nations 
of the earth. 

In the gift of empire, dominion will be hers, and her flag will yet wave in 
amity over the most ancient capitals of the world. Her art and industry will 
yet make the earth bloom as a universal Eden. In Epopa^ia America will yet 
have greater poets than have ever walked upon the earth. In classics she will 
have her Salamis and Lepanto, her Alhambra and Parthenon; and with a 



54 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

universal recognition of the principles of the golden rule by all, who will not 
with prayerful hearts 

' ' Ilail the dawn of the coming day" ? 

The universality of one language, one law, and one religion over all this 
continent, will be invulnerable to the powers of the world. Europe and Asia, 
distracted with their many languages, nationalities, and I'eligions, will con- 
tinue for centuries to struggle with all the adversities produced b}^ discordant 
elements among nations ; hence the civil mission of our people will be 
universal and beneficent to all parts of the world. Intervening between the 
two great oceans of the globe, ours cannot fail to bo the great representative 
nation of the earth in its population, its laws, and its commerce. 

In its bosom all the extremes of the earth will be represented, and to its 
growth all parts of the world will contribute. We look around, East, West, 
North and South, and in every land foreign powers watch our progress with 
awe, and seek favor from our institutions. After all, it is America that will 
inherit the earth. 

India with its 200,000,000, China with its 400,000,000, Polynesia with its 
26,000,000 — more than two-thirds of the whole human race— are only now for 
the first time really open to our enterprise and commerce; and "no matter in 
what region a desirable product is bestowed on man by a liberal Providence, 
or fabricated by human skill — it may clothe the hills of China with its 
fragrant foliage — it may glitter in the golden sands of California — it may 
wallow in the depths of the Arctic Seas — it may ripen and whiten in the 
fertile plains of the sunny South — it may spring forth from the flying shuttles 
of Manchester in England, or Manchester in America — the great world-magnet 
of commerce will attract it alike," and to us will be given sumptuously from the 
bountiful supply, as it is "all gathered up for the service of man." Then, con- 
scious of a tx'ansccndent destiny for the Great Eepublic of the world, and the 
co-equal industrial mission of the American people, the hopes and motives of 
all are made doubly strong as they go forward in the battle of life. 

What man — what woman — what citizen — conscious of being either sire or 
descendant in this nation, and among this people, is not willing to share even 
the meanest part in so grand a mission ? The destiny is alike to the State and 
the citizen ; the growth and prosperity of the one contributes to the welfare 
of the other, and everywhere under the shield of the Constitution, freedom 
is the same to all. What land affords greater opportunities ? What people 
are more equal ? 

Turning, then, from this hopeful consideration, "and beholding my country 
at last redeemed and fixed in history, the Columbus of nations, once in chains, 
but now bailed as benefactor and discoverer, who gave a new liberty to man- 
kind," let us anticipate the consummation of the future, and with the eyes of 
Cassandra, behold "one vast confederation stretching from the frozen North 
in one unbroken line to the glowing South, and from the wild billows of the 
Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific, and over all this vast 
Continent one people, one law, one language, and one faith; and in the fuU 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 55 

fruition of our arms and arts, our industry and dominion, this whole land 
begemmed with mighty cities of civilization; then, with eyes lifted toward 
heaven, behold upon the starry scroll of the future, Columbia's name recorded, 
her future honors and happiness inscribed. Then, closing the vision, let us 
turn to man, and with a voice that will reach all hearts and consciences, bid 
him go forth in peace to the gi'eat mission of the higher and better conquest of 
the world ; and — 

"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State; 
Sail on, O Union, stronj? and great; 
Humanity, with all its fears. 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanfj^ing breathless on thy fate. 
We know what Master laid thy keel. 
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel ; 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 
In what a forge, and what a heat 
W^ere shaped the anchors of thy hope. 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock — 
'Tis of the wave, and not the rock, 
Tis but the flapping of the sail. 
And not a rent made by the gale. 
In spite of rock and tempests' roar. 
In spite of false lights on the shore; 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea. 
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee ; 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 
Are all with thee— are all with thee I" 



AMERICA. 

' 'Melodia rules thy destiny, O Land 
Of coming years; O Empire wise and grand, 
America ! and thou at last shalt be 
The consecrated home of Poetry, 
The fairer Greece, adorned with noblest art. 

And bathed in sacred love from God's creative heart. 
For thee, for thee, the wise Melodians throng 
Even now, and chant in Heaven their morning song. 
For thee and for thy sons methinks they sing; 
They come, and Angel songs as olferings bring. 
For thee and for thy race, methinks they cry, 
'Love, Wisdom, Inspiration, Liberty, 
The four great Angels of the coming time. 

To their Olympian goal lead on thy race sublime. ' 
Tho art that rock-built Pharos that above 
Earth's ocean lifts the immortal flame of love. 
E'en now thou shinest like a beacon-star. 
Leading Earth's myriads o'er the deep afar. 
Thou art the lost Atlantides that lay, 
To ancient thought, beyond the waves away; 
The New Jerusalem, the ancient Seer 
Of Patmos saw, descending white and clear 
From highest heaven; the rich and wise Cathay 
Columbus sought, faith-guided, on his way. 
The Old, the New, the Future and the Past, 
Meet and embrace, complete in thee at last. 
Thou art the crowning flower of Earth and Time, 
The destined Eden of Mankind divine." 



56 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



POrULATION CONSIDERED. 



The material growth of St. Louis, from its foundation by Pierre Laclede 
Liguest, on the 15th day of February, 1764, will ever furnish a historical 
lesson of varied interest to those who now and henceforth enroll themselves 
among its inhabitants. 

" In 1790 a St. Louis merchant was a man who, in the corner of his cabin, had 
a large chest which contained a few pounds of powder and shot, a few 
knives and hatchets, a little red paint, two or three rifles, some hunting shirts 
of buckskin, a few tin cups and iron pots, and perhaps a little tea, coffee, 
sugar and spice. There was no post-office, no ferry over the river, no news- 
paper." From its foundation to the date of the Louisiana purchase, in 1804, 
but little change was made in the character of its social society and industrial 
interests. The ruder and rougher forms of life were everywhere impressed 
upon the society of her people, and marked the growth of an infant city 
destined to be the future capital of the United States and the great city of the 
world. The Louisiana purchase at once fixed not only the destiny of the 
nation, but also of St. Louis, A change in the title of the land wrought a 
change in her material growth and prosperity. A newspaper was established 
in 1808 ; in 1809 fire companies were organized ; in 1810 there were road- 
masters, who had power to compel the requisite labor on the highwaj-s; in 
1811 two schools were established, one English, the other French; in the same 
year a market-house was built, and prosperity gradually awakened new life in 
the place, and pointed to a future full of hope. 

A record of the population of St. Louis began to date in the year 1764, a 
little more than one hundred years ago, and the succeeding increase at different 
periods is shown by the following statement : 

Years. Population. Years. Population. 

17&4 120 1S33 6,397 

1780 687 1835 8,316 

1785 897 1837 12,040 

1788 1,197 1840 16,469 

1799 925 1844 34,140 

1811 1,400 1850 74,439 

1820 4,928 1852 94,000 

1828 5,000 1856 125,200 

1830 5,852 1860 160,773 

Since 1860 no reliable census of St. Louis has been taken. The war brought 
chaos, and the dispersion of the people made it useless to attempt a new 
census before peace and prosperity was restored. In the absence of an official 
and reliable census at the present time, we are compelled to depend, for the 
number of our population, upon the most authoritative estimate of increase 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 57 

which the growth of St. Louis has established. Mr. Scott, in fixing the annual 
average growth of cities, has estimated the growth of St. Louis at an annual 
average rate of 8 per cent. Allowing this percentage to be correct, and taking 
for the basis of our calculation the census of 1860, which gave a population of 
160,773, and calculating the average increase of the succeeding ten years, we 
would have a population at the present time of about 347,100. But if wo 
allow a discount of 2 per cent, for the decimations made by the war, we still 
have a present population of 287,909. This number is not far from the present 
population of the city, and with an extension of the city limits, as other rival 
cities have done, so as to take in subui-ban towns that are essentially parts of 
the citj^, our population will go much beyond 300,000. 

But, in the discussion of this part of the subject, it must be borne in mind 
that in the past, St. Louis, in establishing her increase at 8 per cent, 
per annum, had many adverse interests to contend against, which stulti- 
fied her growth and retarded her progress. She is now for the first time 
entering upon a new career of growth. She is untrammeled. Advantages of 
every kind surround her with prodigal profuseness. Henceforth her future 
growth cannot be gauged or measured by the past, and instead of an annual 
growth of 8 per cent, she will move forward at the rate at least of 10 per cent, 
for the next two decades. This we assume with the full assurance of being 
supported by the facts of the future, at least for twenty years to come. But 
as it is well known that cities have a rapid or slower gx'owth in the long run, 
varying according to the eras or transitions through which nations must 
inevitably pass, thereby rendering it impossible to fix a uniform standard of 
growth, we assume the following figures to be as near the range of a 
reasonable possibility, or at least for a few succeeding decades, as the best 
judgment could dictate in advance of the facts which time and other genera- 
tions will demonstrate. 

Starting with the population of St. Louis as given by the United States 
census in 1860, we submit the following figures as the most probable growth 
of the future great city of the world : 

Population of St. Louis in 1860 ]r)0,77;{ 

Pooulation increased at the rate of G per cent, per annum to 1870 2S7,90!> 

" 10 " " ISSO 74(5,748 

" " " 10 " '• LS'JO 1,938,822 

" " " (i " " litOO :5, 022,408 

" " " T) " " 1910 5,899,303 

" " " 4 " '• 1920 8,7;?2,498 

" " " 3 " •" 1930 11,735,740 

" " " 2 " " ]940 14,305,809 

" 2 " " 1950 17,437,553 

Notwithstanding the apparent correctness of the percentage of growth 
given above, it is not probable that either St. Louis or any other city of this 
earth will ever grow to such an enormous size as to contain at any time a 
population so numerous. We, therefore, submit the figures, and leave them for 
others to analyze and criticise, and in so doing we also submit another calcu- 
lation of the same percentage, save that we make the percentage from 1860 to 
1870, 8 per cent, instead of 6, and this will give us an increased estimate as 
follows : 

D 



1880, 


at 10 " 


1890, 


at 


10 " 


1900, 


at 


G " 


1910, 


at 


5 '* ' 


1920, 


at 


4 " 


1930, 


at 


3 " 


1940, 


at 


2 " ' 


1950, 


at 


2 " ' 



58 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

Population of St. Louis in ISGO 100,773 

1870, at 8 per cent, increase 347,100 

900,288 

2,335,115 

4,181,836 

0,495,441 

9,014,829 

12,921,515 

15,750,266 

19,200,000 

The reader will see at a glance that it will bo impossible for any city to 
attain to a size siifficiently large to contain as many inhabitants as our figures 
indicate. But, in considering the probabilities of the rapid growth of St. 
Louis in the future, it is well to consider how strongly the rapid growth of the 
great Valley States which surround her on every side, bear upon the subject. 
During the decade intervening between the years 1850 and 1860, the growth of 
Illinois was more than 100 per cent., more than doubling her entire population in 
ten years. The increase of Indiana was more than thirty-six per cent. Iowa 
and Kansas have increased with greater rapidity, and the census of the present 
year will show Missouri to have more than doubled her population since the 
census of 1860. Arkansas and other new regions will soon be enrolled as 
prosperous members with their sisters of the great Yalley States, and the 
rapid increase in the population of kindred States cannot fail to be a favorable 
index to the growth of St. Louis. Taking it as a primaiy truth that the 
growth of a city, or at least an inland city, depends much upon the growth 
of the surrounding country, we may be sure that St. Louis is highly favored 
in this way. 

"We may safely assume that for the next thousand years, or nearly so, the 
cities of the world will grow to be much larger than they have in the past, 
and that St. Louis will reach a population ranging from 5,000,000 to 10,000,000, 
and with a probability of going beyond these figures within the next one 
hundred and fifty years. In less than fifty years London will cease to grow, 
and quite likely Paris. Civilization in the Old World will soon begin to re-cast 
itself in the farther east, and Eome will yet, under a new government and 
religion, become the imperial city of the trans-Atlantic w^orld. In less than 
one hundred years New York will cease to grow, and, adjusted to a now order 
of the world's commerce and civilization, the struggle for the future great city 
of the world will be between competitors many of which are not now in the 
race. In less than one hundred j'ears St. Louis will move forward in the 
advance in the majestic march of the cities of the world to her predestined 
goal of victor in the great race. 

What new agencies the arts and sciences may yet call into existence that 
will have an important bearing upon the disti'ibution or concentration of the 
people, is difficult to tell. Wo may reasonably expect that in less than fifty 
years both the storms and the rains will be controlled by science, and the 
people can call the winds and the rain when they willeth; that transportation 
by means of pneumatic tubes, as m^oII as aerial navigation, Avill be introduced 
into practical use, which, together with cheaper freights and more rapid travel 
«)!) viiilroads, will exert a powor'ii! iiifluenee upon the future interests and 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 59 

civilization of the world's people. IIow far such contributions by science and 
art will tend to more readily satisfying the business interests and wants of the 
people, so as to tend to a dispersion rather than a concentration, must be left 
for actual experience to demonstrate. We may assume, however, that neither 
science nor art can very soon contribute anything that will prevent capital 
and monopoly from concentrating people as well as public interests. 

The great cities of the world will continue to grow in the future for five 
hundred or a thousand years, until civilization and republicanism snail have 
exhausted themselves in a final culmination of individualism, or stealing, by 
the human race, and the inauguration of a new and truer government and 
society — a society and government of unity and universality, which, in the 
very nature of their organizations, will tend to diffusion, and be adverse to 
monopoly, and consequently adverse to the building of great cities. 

But to return, St. Louis in her future growth will be supported largely by 
her suburban towns, which will stand as jewels in the crown of the great city, 
as they are to be seen in embryo on the map representing the area within 
which the destined city now stands. On the east side of the river, and lying 
within a ciicle of sixty miles diameter, and with St. Louis for its center, are 
the following towns, with their present population : 

Towns. Population. Towns. Population. 

East St. Louis 5,000 Shiloah 250 

Venice 2,000 Mascoutah 2,500 

Alton 15,000 Freebm-o: 1,000 

Belleville 15,000 Waterloo 2,000 

Eclwarclsville 3.000 Columbia 1,500 

Monticello 1,000 St. Jacobs 500 

Marinetown 800 Mitchell 100 

Lebanon 3,000 Centreville 2,500 

Troy 1,500 Prairie du Pont 50 

Coliinsville 1,500 Cahokia 1,000 

Greenwood GOO Pittsburg 500 

Casevville 250 Henrysville 50 

O'Fallon 500 

Total suburban population on east side of the river 54,100 

The suburban towns, and their population on the west side of the river, and 
w^ithin the circle, are as follows : 

Towns. Population. Towns. Population. 

St. Charles 7,000 Baldwin 300 

Carondelet 15,000 Eureka 300 

Kock Springs 1,000 Allenton 200 

Elleardville 3,000 Florissant 1,500 

Lowell 1,000 Georgetown 60 

Kirkwood 2,500 Linton 75 

Webster 2.000 Glencoe 50 

Bridgeton 700 Black Jack 400 

Manchester 500 Baden 1,500 



Total population 37,485 

Add these numbers, to those who live in the country, to our city popu- 
lation, and wo have well nigh 500,000 people residing upon the area of 
country represented by the map; and it will not require many years to pass 
away before 500,000 people will do business within the corporate limits of St. 
Louis, and yet reside, with their families, at a distance from the city. Trains 



60 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

will soon run upon our railroads at the rate of sixty miles an boui', and at 
very greatly reduced rates. This will afford advantages and opportunity for 
cheaper living in the country, as vrell as better living to many. And we may 
safely assume that when St. Louis reaches a population of 5,000^000 to 
10;000;000, that, in unity with the growth of her suburban towns, she will 
occupy, in many directions, the country reaching to the extremit}' of the map ; 
and in the future, it will not be uncommon to find streets of the finest char- 
acter fifteen and twenty miles long, well paved^ and lighted with gas, streets 
more splendid than those once so beautiful and wonderful in Cordova. Then, 
looking through the future to the wonderful growth which will bo spread out 
in and around this great city, may we not anxiously inquire with the poet — 

"Who'll tlironf^ these streets, in ea^er haste, 

One hundred years from now? 
******* 
"Who will be those patriots brave, 

To guard our t\ag o'er land and wave. 

One lumdred years from now?' ' 



THE GEOGRAPHICAL, GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL SITUATION OP THE CITY 

OF ST. LOUIS. 

The city of St. Louis is situated, geographically, very nearly in the center of 
the great valley of the Mississippi or basin of the continent, on the wust 
bank of the Mississippi river, and about half way between St. Paul and New 
Orleans, and Pittsburg and Denver City. 

The topography of St. Louis county consists of a system of ridges branching 
from a water-shed between the Missouri, Meramcc and Mississippi rivers. This 
water-shed has a general altitude of two hundred feet above the Mississippi 
river, and has numerous small ridges or arms branching from it and winding 
in serpentine courses, and maintaining this general altitude along their summits, 
and terminating in bluffs or low escarpments and declining grounds towards 
the Meramec, Missouri and Mississippi rivers. 

The city is built geographically on the ends or termination of this ridge 
system, and extends some twelve miles up and down the river, the ground 
rising gently from the river back for one mile to Seventeenth street, which 
follows in part the apex of the first ridge, and is one hundred and fifty feet 
above the river. The ground then gently declines, and rises in a second ridge 
at Twenty-fifth street, or Jefferson avenue, and parts of Grand avenue, and 
again slopes and rises in a ridge at Cote Brilliante, or Wilson's Hill, that is 
four miles west of the river. This point is some two hundred feet above the 
river, and overlooks the city. 

Looking at the topography of the site which St. Louis now occupies, the 
observer will be most intensely impressed with the thought that nature in her 
immutable decrees had ordained, from the beginning, that here she laid the 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 61 

foundation for a great city — the future imperial city of the world. Nor is the 
character and superiority of the land circumscribed by the present city limits ; 
not at all. The same beauty in the general formation and adaptability of the 
ground for building purposes, and the consequent expansion of the cit}-, 
extends back in every way from the river for *an indefinite distance, and with 
still greater advantages for building purposes as we advance into the country. 

The geological formation of St. Louis county is limestones, shales, and sand- 
stones of the coal measures, these being covered with alluvial clays from ten 
to twenty feet deep, making the contour of the ridges wavey and dividing the 
country into rich rolling prairie, from one to two hundred feet above the rivers, 
and bordered with belts and groves of black and white oak woods, and the 
country shows many substantial brick mansions, highly cultivated farms, vine- 
3'ard8, orchards, meadows, slopes — forming the most natural grounds for building 
purposes found in any part of our country. Viewing this rolling prairie, with 
all its wealth of alluvial soil, its contour of ridge and valley, its springs and 
meandering streams, it seems as if the laws of nature had here amassed their 
wealth, and centralized the material resources to supply the wants of a dense 
and wealthy population ; and, not being content with this wealth of soil and 
art on the surface, had underlaid a large part of this area with coal veins, St. 
Louis county containing an undeveloped coal basin of over 10,000 acres. 

While New York is limited to a barren, rocky island, Philadelphia to a low 
ridge between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, Washington City to a flat, 
sterile, uninteresting region, Chicago to land from five to fifteen feet above 
Lake Michigan, and swampy prairie beyond, Cincinnati to a small circuit 
surrounded by steep rocky hills, St. Louis has not only the most natural 
contour of surface for elevation of residence streets — deep clay over the lime- 
stone for brick, cellars, sewerage, and foundations, quarries of building rock 
in all parts of the city — wells of pure water in the deep clays in many parts of 
the city, natural sewerage and dome-shaped hills for water-works, and essen- 
tially combining all the material resources for a great city. London and Paris 
are built on tertiary basins, where the soil is thin and rocks generally too soft 
for good building material. Grand avenue is twelve miles long, running 
parallel with the river, and forming a grand broadway from the north to the 
south end of the city, and is destined in the future, with its fair grounds, its 
great parks, cathedrals, churches, water-works, and private residences, to he 
the boulevard of the Western continent. And yet, when this has been said, 
we have but commenced to tell of the wonders of a city destined in the future 
to equal London in its population, Athens in its philosophy, art and culture, 
Eome in its hotels, cathedrals, churches and grandeur, and be the central com- 
mercial metropolis of a continent. 

It may bo asked, how shall we have cognizance of the laws to give us faith 
in this being accomplished ? Go, then, in imagination, ninety miles south of 
the city, over the railroad to the Iron Mountains, where is stored above the 
level of the valleys, iron ore sufficient to supply the wants of a densely 
populated continent. One thousand tons of this ore now comes daily, over a 
down grade of seven hundred feet, to St. Louis. In another year a double- 
track railroad will be needed. Flanking this iron system is 10,000,000 acres of 



G2 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

iron, lead, copper, zinc, antimony, nickel, tin, silver and gold regions; west of 
Ibis is another 10,000,000 acres^ including South-west Missouri, being fields 
of similar ores, and part coal. This, you will bear in mind, is south of tho city. 
Now, let us look East. Tho four great trunk railroads leading east at ten 
miles from tho city reach the coal mieasures, run each over two hundred miles 
of tho great Illinois coal basin, where five or six coal veins are piled one vein 
above the other. To the North this same coal system is found, and all the 
railroads in North Missouri are crossing more or less over coal veins. To the 
West, the great trunk Pacific railroad, bej'ond Jefferson City, crosses over vast 
coal fields, Kansas City being built centrally in this great field. 

Coal and iron are the bones and sinews of the most powerful of modern 
nations. Lead, zinc, and copper add strength. In tho future, the country to 
pa}' tribute to this center are the vast cotton fields of tho lower Mississippi — 
the grain-growing regions of tho North and West — the argentiferous and 
auriferous belts of Colorado and Montana. 

St. Louis, like ancient Home, once with its 10,000,000 population, is destined 
to be flanked and surrounded with a galaxy or cordon of continental cities. 
Memphis, Kansas City, St. Joseph, Leavenworth, Dubuque, Keokuk, Daven- 
port, Jacksonville, Springfield, Terre Haute, and Indianapolis are a part of 
these satellites that in the future are to pay tribute to this center, and taking 
in view tho fact of those vast material resources, and these being the center of 
the great fruit, agricultural and wino belt of the continent. 

Tho people, the Teutonic and Celtic races, the pioneer people in all the 
departments of human industry, politics, culture, theology. Wo apprehend 
that the most acute vision_, even were that mind in harmony with the spii'it of 
the times, and enabled through that moans to look back through the dim 
geologic history of the past, when the economic laws were piling the iron, 
atom by atom, in these iron mountains, growing tho dense flora of the coal 
plants, repleting the veins of load, zinc, copper, tin, silver and gold, and at the 
same time comprehend tho ridge, valley, spring, prairie, timber and river 
systems, and was enabled to go back in the ethnography and heraldry of these 
populations, and could fuse those elements or facts in the future ; and at the 
same time realize the grandeur of the empires of tho past — tho Persian, 
under Cyrus — the Macedonian, under Alexander the Great — the Eoman, under 
the Ecpublic and tho twelve Caesars — that tho truth would bo forced upon the 
mind, that in the future this great Yalley of the Mississippi will include tho 
center of an empire, before which, in wealth, power and grandeur, all these 
shall pale. 

That St. Louis, sitting like a Queen on the banks of tho great Father of 
Waters, will bo the central city of this people — tho tidal waves of whose civili- 
zation Avill roll to China and Japan on the west, and to the Bosphorus on the 
cast; and with her continental railroad system, her telegraphs over mountains 
and under oceans, her vast water communication will radiate law and order, 
and become tho loading national, mining and commercial raeti^opolis of the 
Western hemisphere. 

St. Louis, though in its infancy, is already a largo city. Its length is about 
twelve miles, and its width from four to five. Suburban residences, the out- 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 63 

posts of the grand advance, are now stationed six and eight miles from the 
river, and will soon be twenty. In 1865, the real and personal property of the 
city was assessed at $100,000,000, and in 1866 at $126,877,000. These figures, as 
well as the present assessment, $147,968,070, are understood by our city 
officials to be much below the real value of the city. 

St. Louis is a well-built city, but its architecture is more substantial than 
show3\ The wide, well-paved streets, the spacious levee and commodious 
warehouses; the mills, machine shops and manufactories; the fine hotels, 
churches and public buildings ; the universities, charitable institutions, public 
schools and libraries ; the growing parks, the well-improved and unequaled Fair 
grounds, and Mr, Shaw's jewel of a garden, which is by far the garden of the 
continent, constitute an array of excellencies and attractions of which any 
city may justly be proud. The appearance of St. Louis from the eastern bank 
of the Mississippi is impressive. At East St. Louis the eye sometimes com- 
mands a view of one hundred steamboats lying at our levee. A mile and a 
half of steamboats lying at the wharf of a city 1000 miles from the ocean, in 
the heart of a continent, is a spectacle which naturally inspires large views of 
commercial greatness. The sight of our levee, thronged with busy merchants 
and covered with the commodities of every clime, from the peltries of the 
Rocky Mountains to the teas of China, does not tend to lessen the magnitude 
of the impression. 

These thoughts of the growth and commerce of St. Louis could easily bo 
extended to a discussion of the wealth and industry of our continent, but the 
amplificr.tion would be of no avail to a people whose minds, like their eyes, are 
so accustomed to range over large extents, and are not content sit down after 
having ac(iuired a little power. 



64 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



THE RAILWAY SYSTEM OF ST. LOUIS. 



To determine the importance of a State or city, its essential condition and 
advantages must be defined and understood, both in their immediate and 
approximate relations ; and to ascertain their future greatness and eontrollinj:!; 
influence, their local and general relations must be considered in connection 
with the natural advantages which they possess for the civil and industrial 
pursuits of man, and their natural and artificial facilities for the exchange of 
the products of different lands and climates, and the intercommunication of 
one people with another. By these means the commercial and civil value of 
all States and cities can easily he determined^ and their general values 
estimated in the march of civilization and progress. It is by these means 
that we propose to determine the commercial importance of St. Louis, and the 
place she will fill, and the influence she will exercise in the present continental 
strife for commercial supremacy. 

The most important consideration of the subject is her system of railroads 
and navigable rivers, a full description of which we submit, in so far as the 
facts relate to the practicable purposes of commerce. ^ 

The Mississippi river is the continental stream of North America. It forms 
a lino of unbroken navigation from New Orleans to Fort Snelling, a distance of 
2,131 miles. No stream has ever served so valuable purposes to commerce and 
civilization, and no city upon its banks has ever, or can ever, share so 
largely in the commerce that floats upon its waters as St. Louis. In connection 
with its tributaries it affords more than ten thousand miles of inland navi- 
gation, and more than three-fourths of which bear directly upon the interests 
of St. Louis. More than ten thousand steamboats, together with a large 
number of barges, lighters, and similar crafts, used as auxiliaries in the carry- 
ing trade, are actively engaged in the commerce of these waters; the far 
greater part of which does now and will continue to bear upon the interests of 
St. Louis. 

Besides the already navigable streams there are many smaller tributaries 
which will, when the country is older and more wealthy, be converted into 
canals, and thus furnish an extended western slack- water navigation. 

Turning from the rivers, we now proceed to set forth her great sj'stem of rail- 
roads, as they are now completed; also those which are being built, and the 
most important of such lines as have been agitated. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 05 

1. The St. Louis and Cairo R, R. Projective. 

2. Belleville and Southern R. R. 

3. St. Louis and Evansville R. R. Prospective. 

4. St. Louis and Southeastern Illinois R. R. Euilding. 

5. New Albany and St. Louis R. R. Prospective. 

6. The Ohio and Mississippi R. R. 

7. The St. Louis, Vandalia and Terre Haute R. R. 

8. The Indianapolis and St. Louis R. R. 

9. Decatur and East St. Louis R. R. 
10. Chicago, Alton and St. Louis R. R. 

11.- St. Louis, Jacksonville and Bloomington R. R. 

12. Rockford, Rock Island and St. Louis R. R. 
Peoria, Pekin and Jacksonville R. R.; a connection. 

13. Quincy and St. Louis R. R. Prospective. 

Crossing the Mississippi river, north of St. Louis, the first road wo meet is — 

14. The St. Louis, Louisiana and Keokuk R. R. Building. 

15. The JSTorth Missouri R. R. North Branch. 

16. The North Missouri R. R. West Branch. 

17. The North Missouri and St. Joseph R. R., via Hannibal and St. Joseph 

R. R. 

18. St. Louis, Chillicothe and Omaha R. R. Building. 

19. Missouri Pacific R. R. 

Sedalia and Lexington Branch of Mo. Pacific. 
Sedalia and Ft. Scott Branch of Mo. Pacific. 

20. St. Louis and Ft. Scott Air Line R. R. Prospective. 

21. South-west Pacific R. R. 

22. Iron Mountain R. R. to Galveston. 

Thus we have twenty-two distinct trunk roads converging at St. Louis, 
nearly every one of which is built, or under way of construction, and not one 
will be abandoned. No other city on the continent, or in the world, has so 
many, nor is it likely that any rival place will ever be favored with so great a 
number. I have neglected to place in the list several local and connecting 
roads, which properly belong to the St. Louis system and are valuable feeders 
to other lines, but for their not being essentially trunk lines, were omitted. 
My object has been more especially to show that St. Louis stands in the center 
of a great system of railways and navigable rivers, which radiate from her as 
a focal point to almost every extremity of the country, touching oceans, lakes 
and seas, and uniting the civil, social and commercial interests of a conti- 
nental people, as well as creating an easy exchange for the fish, fruits, and 
other products of antagonistic climates. 

The following statement of distances will show how St. Louis stands in 
relation to some of the principal cities of the country, as well as to our sea- 
board markets : 



C)Q THE FUrORE GREAT CITY. 

■ Places. Distance. Places. Distance. 

From St. Lonis to— Miles. From St. Louis to— Miles. 

Boston, via rail 1225 New Orleans, via rail , 722 

New York 10G4 Galveston 7S7 

Philadelphia 074 San Francisco 2353 

Haltiniore 929 Denver City 012 

Washinjjton City 051 Omaha 43G 

lliclimond 1096 Leavenworth 29G 

Norfolk 1170 Chicago 2S0 

Charleston 070 Cincinnati 340 

Savannah OGO Louisville 302 

Mobile CGG Indianapolis 238 

In submitting this statement of the railway system of St. Louis, its mighty 
frame-work and net-work which ramifies the entire Yalley of the Mississippi, 
and extends its Briarean arms to each ocean, the gulf and the lakes^ and holds 
in its grasj) the empire of the continent, we also submit that in the most 
superlative degree does St. Louis occupy the center of the greatest productive 
power, as well as the greatest center of river navigation afforded on the 
globe ; and thus uniting the greatest means with the greatest facilities that the 
world affords, who, with a just comprehension of the facts, does not see the 
truth of the argument in favor of the future great city so conclusivelj' as to 
be convinced of its correctness, generations in advance of the actual existence 
of the city itself? But this vast contribution of productive power, this system 
of river navigation, as well as the ever-expanding railway system, has a 
primary meaning. They all mean and foreshadow generations of civil, indus- 
trial and commercial progress, and these lead to a consideration of a new 

RAILWAY POLICY FOR ST. LOUIS, 

as well as for the entire West, and this new policy means nothing more nor 
less than a Western railway policy, and with its establishment will also be 
organized a political and commercial policy for the West. It is no longer the 
fact that the great States of the Mississippi Valley ai'o commercial or political 
dependencies to the cities of the Atlantic sea board. It is true they have 
political and commercial interest with those States and cities, and it is to be 
hoped ever will have. But the time is now and will continue henceforth, long 
as the waters run, that the commercial and political importance of the Valley 
States are greater than those of either sea board, and therefore they must be 
the dictators of such political and commercial policies as their wisdom and 
welfare may demand. The political power and commerce of the American 
people have spanned the continent, and from the Pacific shore civilization 
re-acts to the center, where, like a great maelstrom, sweeping from the circum- 
ference to the center, will be the greatest power and activity of our people in 
their future growth and struggle for gain. 

It therefore becomes the people of St. Louis, as well as of the West, to 
establish a railway policy that will best subserve their commercial interest — a 
policy that will create an exchange of Western products North and South, 
instead of allowing them to be carried away in less valuable channels. East 
and West, Nature has already dictated that the commerce of this great valley 
must follow the flow of the waters to the gulf, and there seek the markets of 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 67 

the Avorld ; and those of the West who do not already comprehend this truth 
will soon learn it through the impoverished railway polic}' that is rapidly- 
binding them to the East, as the Philistines bound Samson. 

St. Louis must make a bold stand for a railway jDolicy that will cause the 
exchange of the products of the Valley States North and South — exchange 
them between the lakes and the gulf — between climates, and not along parallel 
lines of longitude. St. Louis wants the trade of the tropics and the trade of the 
North. She must have a railway policy that will establish this trade, and make 
her the point of exchange between the two climates. 

By the new railway line now projected, via Iron Mountain, Fulton and 
Galveston Railroad, which is under way of construction, the gulf' can be 
reached at a distance of 787 miles. When this road is completed it will be of 
vastl}' more value to St. Louis than any other road that reaches her, and its 
completion will open the way for that policy for North and South exchange 
which must be established in the interest of the trade of the Yalley States. 

In the interest of the especial climatic trade and postal service of the people 
between the lakes and the gulf, it is highly probable that a project will, in the 
course of ten years, be set on foot to construct a pneumatic tube from Chicago, 
via St. Louis, to New Orleans. The postal patronage, together with the fish 
and fruit trade, would well uigh, if not wholly, sustain its construction. 



68 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



MISSOURI AND HER RESOURCES. 



Missouri is the great central State of the World's Republic. Geographically 
considered, nearl}^ equal portions of the American Union stretch out from her 
borders towards the ISforth, South, East and West. Its dormant and latent 
energies being once awakened and developed, Missouri must become the 
Empire State of the Centei", as New York is of the East. Its climatic position 
is altogether propitious, the surface not being greatly elevated, and the State 
lying between the temperate parallels of 36° 30^ and 40° 30' N. latitude, and 
between the meridians of 89° 1' and 95° 52' W. longitude. 

The greatest length of the State, from East to West, is 320 miles, and its 
width, from ISTorth to South, 280. These dimensions embrace an area of 
67,380 square miles, equal to 43,123,200 acres of land ; being about one-third 
larger than England, and possessing twice the productive capacity of that 
wonderful country. Missouri is larger than any State oast of the Mississippi, 
and possesses as much fruitful and arable soil as any of her sister States, 
whether east or west. Not less than 36,000,000 acres of land in Missouri are 
well adapted to furnish all the products of a temperate clime. 

No State is bettor supplied with fountains and streams, as well u's, with 
great rivers. It is bounded and bisected by the Mississippi and Missouri, two 
of the largest and longest rivers in the woi-ld; rivers whose fountains are more 
than thi'ee thousand miles aAvay, fed by the waters of the Itasca, or the eternal 
storms that breed and brood about the cliffs and canons of the Eocky Moun- 
tains, whose affluents water a score of States and Territories, and whose accu- 
mulated floods are poured into a torrid sea. One thousand miles of these 
great rivei'S lie within or upon the boundary of Missouri. The principal 
streams flowing into the Mississippi from this State are the Salt, Meramec, 
White and St. Francois, the two latter being more properly rivers of Arkansas ; 
and the main affluents of the Missouri are the Osage, Gasconade, Lamoine, 
Chariton, Grand, Platte, and Nodaway. 

Nature has given to Missouri vast resources in agricultural and mineral 
wealth, also abundant facilities for commanding and managing the internal 
commerce of the West. St. Louis, her commercial capital, is near the 
confluence of the two great rivers. There she stands, like the Apocalyptic 
angel, "with one foot on the land, and the other on the sea," beckoning to her 
the white-winged messengers of commerce from every ocean, and stretching 
out her iron fingers to grasp the internal trade of half a continent. 

The geographical and mineralogical features of Missouri ai*e not only 
peculiar, but such as add greatly to the value of its products. What is known 
as the "Ozark range," not of mountains, but of hills, passes through the 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 69 

80uth half of the State from west to east; sometimes ai^pearing merely in the 
shape of elevated table-lands, and then again broken into rough and rugged 
hills. Most of the latter, however, are rich in metals or minerals, such as 
iron, lead, zinc, copper, coal, etc. Much the larger portion of this hilly region, 
too, is susceptible of cultivation ; and for raising sheep, or the culture of the 
cereals, fruits, and especially grapes, no better land can be found anywhere 
oast of the Eocky Mountains. As the first settlers in Missouri generally 
sought the rich alluvial and prairie soils of the north-west and central portions 
of the State, the vast and fruitful region lying in the south-west, south and 
south-east was neglected, and deemed almost worthless. Large quantities of 
this land, so rich in minerals, and readily yielding fine crops of grain and 
fruit, have, within a few years, been sold for 12^ cents per acre. That time 
has passed, however, and thousands of enterprising immigrants, both farmers 
and miners, are making for themselves pleasant and profitable homes in the 
south half of Missouri. 

The soil along the river bottoms of Missouri is rich as the famed valley 
of the Nile. Only a little less fruitful, and much more easily put into culti- 
vation, are the millions of acres of rich pi-airie land in the north-west and 
central portions of the State. The capacity of this State for producing food 
for both men and animals is something enormous. Whenever there is a full 
development of the State's resources, Missouri will furnish happy homes for 
five millions of people; one-half making bread, not only for themselves, but 
to feed two or three millions of miners, mechanics, merchants, and professional 
men; and the whole State receiving every year many millions more for her 
exports than she pays for imports. 

Looking at the two grand districts of Missouri a little more in detail, and 
beginning with the extreme south-east, we find an extensive bottom-land 
along the Mississippi, extending from Cape Girardeau south to the Arkansas 
river. It includes many swamps which are rendered almost impenetrable by a 
dense growth of trees. The most extensive of these, called the Great Swamp, 
commences a few miles south of Cape Girardeau, and passes south to the 
mouth of the St. Francois, penetrating far into the State of Arkansas, This 
peculiar feature gave to Missouri its south-eastern "pan-handle," or projection 
south of 3G° 30', the once charmed parallel between freedom and slavery. 
The early settlers in the region below Cape Girardeau, and south of the proper 
boundary of the State, could not reach any settlements in Arkansas, on 
account of the swamps, and prayed to be attached to Missouri, where they 
were in the habit of trading and getting their corn ground. 

Turning northward from the swamp region, and following up the course of 
the Mississippi, we find a belt of high lands reaching all the way up to the 
mouth of the Missouri. The highest jyart of this range is between St. Gene- 
vieve and the mouth of the Meramec, where the ridge rises from three to four 
hundred feet above the waters of the Mississippi. This ridge of high lands is 
the Ozark range, before alluded to, cut asunder by the Father of Waters, 
extending westward through the State, not losing its rough and rugged char- 
acter until it is lost in a ridge of high prairie. 



70 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

In the country north of tho Missouri, constituting about one-third of the 
State, the country is more level, but sufficiently undulating to secure good 
drainage ; and the soil is generally excellent, a large portion of the countr}- 
being a rich prairie, watered by numerous streams, each with its belt of timber. 
Altogether the richest soil and most productive portions of Missouri are to be 
found in the western and north-western counties of the State. The Platte 
country, in the north-west, and Clay, Jackson and Lafayette counties, in the 
west, have long been famed for their wonderful yield of hemp, grain and stock. 

THE CLIMATE 

Of Missouri is peculiar. Being situated about half way between the great 
Southern Gulf and the semi-arctic regions of tho North, with but slight barriers 
on either side, she is subject, like all Western States of the same latitude, to 
frequent changes of temperature. But notwithstanding the great and sudden 
transitions as indicated by the thermometer, Missouri may be considered a very 
healthy State. Pulmonary diseases very rarely originate here. In most parts 
of the State plowing and putting in crops commence in March, and tho forests 
are in full foliage early in May; while in the extreme southern counties cotton 
is raised, and young stock manage to live through tho winter with little or 
no care. 

Taking the State with all its advantages — its fruitful soil and healthful 
climate, its vast wealth of metals and minerals, its facilities for transportation 
by rail or river, its present wealth and prospective greatness — and there is 
scarcely another State in the American Union that affords such attractions and 
inducements either to the capitalist or the emigrant. 

HISTORY. 

Although the life of Missouri, as a State, has only extended through half a 
century, j-et it has been the busiest and most progressive half century in the 
annals of the world, and its chai'acteristics have been stamped upon the history 
and fortunes of the State. Missouri had its origin amidst the first great 
political troubles and disputes of the American Republic. A compromise gave 
legal existence to tho State ; and this compromise was finally washed out in 
the blood of a civil war. The fraternal strife which for four years trans- 
formed the most beautiful country and the grandest political empire in the 
world into a great battle-field, gave a fall share of its bloody fortunes to 
Missouri. Some of the fairest portions of the State were almost depopulated, 
and whole sections passed through the ordeal of blood and fire, and when the 
desolation had gone by, presented nothing but unpeopled and smoking ruins. 
But after the night came the day, and the horrid wounds inflicted by civil war 
began to be healed by the angel of peace. It was sharp and painful surger}^ 
that cut away tho old excrescence, but it left the body politic healthier, and all 
the people happier and more prosperous than ever before. 

"Under the old regime, the States of Illinois and Indiana, although far behind 
us in natural resources, were outstripping Missouri in the march of empire. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 71 

Although the great advantages of the State brought many immigrants in spit-e 
of the system then in vogue, 3'et our sister States across the Mississippi were, 
at the commencement of the war, far in advance of us as regarded population 
and material wealth. This state of things is being rapidly changed by the 
multitudes of emigrants from the eastern and middle States^ and the Old 
World, who are seeking homes on our rich prairies, in our fruitful valleys, and 
extensive forests, or in our exhaustless mines of iron, lead and zinc. 

POPULATION. 

The present population of Missouri may be safely put down at nearly, if not 
quite, 2,000,000. The first census of the State, when it was admitted into 
the Union in 1821, showed a population of 70,647. From that date the 
number of inhabitants very nearly doubled each decade up to 1860, when the 
population of Missouri, including white, free colored, and slaves, amounted to 
1,172,797. The war drained the State, not only of material wealth, but of 
multitudes of people; but the return of peace, and the increased and ever- 
increasing tide of immigration, will bring the State up to three millions before 
the year 1880. Of the present inhabitants of Missouri about one hundred 
thousand, or one in fifteen, are colored. Considering the condition these 
people have been in for generations past, they have conducted themselves with 
great propriety since their formal emancipation in 1865. A large majority of 
them are not only making an honest support for themselves and families, but, 
by their industry and frugality, accumulating a decent competence. On the 
south side of the Missouri river especially, there is a large German element in 
the population. Wherever these people make homes in the country, and plant 
vineyards or cultivate small farms, you may look with confidence for present 
prosperity and future wealth. Every town or neighborhood in Missouri that 
has been planted by Germans is now actually wealth}^, or has the elements of 
certain prosperity in the future. 

EDUCATION. 

But let us pass from these general views of a great State and its varied 
resources, to some of the details which constitute the grand result. When we 
speak of the wealth of a State, we should not so much consider its rich mines, 
its fruitful soil, its genial climate, and its natural channels of commerce and 
communication, as its people. The people are all that give real wealth to an}- 
country. Without inhabitants, the fairest lands upon which the -sun shines 
would be of no more value than a barren beach or a rocky cliff. But then the 
people must have intelligence in order to give value to the country they 
inhabit. Savages make a land poorer instead of richer by their presence. 
And just in proportion as a community rise in the scale of civilization, intelli- 
gence, refinement, and moral worth, their lands and houses go up in their 
money value. 

In. this matter Missouri made a grand investment at the very start, and her 
school fund has been so well husbanded and increased by legislation that she 
has now a system of public instruction that may challenge comjparison with 



72 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

that of any State in the Union. It is not meant by this that the educational 
machinery of the State is everywhere in perfect working order, but that the 
foundations of the system are laid deep and secure; and if any child of 
Missouri grows up in absolute ignorance, it will be because it refused the light 
that is offered almost ''without money and without price." 

The following items will serve to indicate the present working of the 
common school system in Missouri : Number of children in State between 
five and twenty-one years, 584,020 for the year 1869; number of children in 
public schools, 249,729. It would be safe to estimate that 150,000 students 
were in the numerous colleges, seminaries, private and parochial schools, 
during the same year. Number of teachers in public schools, 7,145; number 
of public schools in the State ; 5,307 ; number of public school-houses, 5,412 ; 
value of public school-houses, $3,087,062. 

The richly endowed Industrial College, incorporated w^ith the State Univer- 
sity, at Columbia, offers not only an academic but an agricultural education to 
all who desire to become scientific as well as practical farmers. Other incor- 
porated and leading institutions of learning in Missouri are : North Missouri 
Normal School, at Kirksville ; William Jewett College, at Liberty ; Grand 
liiver College, at Edinburgh ; Plattsburg College, at Plattsburg ; McGee 
College, at College Mound; Christian University, at Canton; Washington 
University and St. Louis University, both at St. Louis; St. Paul's College, at 
Palmyra ; and Bethel College, at Palm3'ra. 

MANUFACTURES. 

No great community, living in a fertile and productive country, can be long 
or largely prosperous unless it shows a certain amount of independence, or 
rather, an ability and disposition to supply most of its ordinary wants. A 
simple monopoly is always an evil, tending to enrich a few and impoverish 
the multitude. Before the war, the Southern States made cotton and sugar, 
and looked to the North almost entirely for breadstuffs. Since the war they 
have learned to produce a large portion of their food supplies, and as a result, 
will soon be more prosperous than ever before. 

Missom-i has a food-producing capacity suflScient to sustain thirty or forty 
millions of people. But it is by no means her policy to devote all her energies 
to raising corn, wheat, and pork, trusting entirely to other States and foreign 
countries for the ten thousand articles and implements demanded by the 
present civilization and the various industries connected with it. 

Missouri has illimitable quantities of the raw material, and wonderful facili- 
ties for generating the necessary power to transform that raw material into 
the thousand forms suited to the wants of civilized men. Until lately we have 
done but little in the way of manufactures, beyond making wheat into flour, 
corn into whisky, hemp into bagging and rope, tobacco into shapes to suit 
smokers and chewers, and iron into stoves and heavy castings. But a new era 
has dawned upon the State. We have discovered that we can make a thousand 
articles of primarj^ and pressing need just as well as they can be made in 
New or Old England. In the single article of iron, the capital invested in its 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 73 

manufacture has quadrupled within the last four or five years. Capitalists 
from abroad, who have studied our resources and facilities for manufacturing 
iron, have become satisfied that Missouri must soon become one of the largest 
iron-producing States in the world; and they are adding millions to the 
working capital employed in this branch of industr}-. 

The time is approaching when we shall not have to import our railroad iron 
from Europe, much of our pottery and queensware from other States, our 
glass and hardware from the good city of Pittsburgh^ and many of our woolen 
and cotton goods from ISTew England. When that time comes, Missouri will 
have achieved her great destiny as the Empire State of the Mississippi Valley. 

CREDIT OF MISSOURI. 

A country possessing such vast stores of material wealth as Missouri, 
although much of it is still undeveloped, should have proper credit and con- 
sideration in all bureaus of finance throughout the world. A State that could 
be sold under the hammer to-day for more than a thousand millions of dollars, 
should have her bonds as good as gold. They are nearly so, in spite of the 
heavy railroad debt incurred before the war. This debt is being rapidly 
canceled, and very soon Missouri G's will stand at par or a premium. It may 
not be improper to add in this connection, that the assessed value of the 
taxable property in Missouri in 18G8, with such addition as the assessors them- 
selves allow to be correct in estimating the real cash value of property, 
amounted to §1, 177,000,000, and this vast amount will be increased to at least 
§1,250,000,000 the present year. 

STOCK-RAISING. 

Perhaps there is no one of the great Western States of the American Union 
better adapted to stock-raising than Missouri. Abundant crops of grain and 
corn are almost as certain as the return of the seasons. The climate in most 
parts of the State is mild enough to preclude the necessity of much shelter or 
long feeding in winter. Small streams, with their meandering branches and 
bubbling fountains, lie like a net-work all over the State; and some of these 
streams are so impregnated with salt as to supply stock with all they need of 
this article. 

The following exhibits the number and value of horses, mules, cattle, sheep, 
and hogs, in 1868 : 

Value. 

Horses 375,400 $19,203,427 

Mules 80,299 4,822,088 

Cattle 9:33,517 12,109,234 

Sheep 1,385,805 1,951,078 

Hog? 1,952,532 3,734,006 



Total. ..4, 733, 453 $41,880,733 

E 



74 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



VALUE OF LAND IN MISSOURI. 



It is doubtful whether any other State in the Mississippi Yallev can furnish 
good land at so moderate a price as Missouri. On the south side of the Mis- 
souri river there are more than a million of acres (much of it good land) still 
to be given away as homesteads. In the same portion of the State there are 
millions of acres, mostly lying south of the Osage river, that can be bought for 
from fifty cents to five dollars an acre. Much of this land is equal to any in 
the whole country for vineyards, fruit, and sheep farms. In the extreme south- 
eastern quarter of the State there is an immense body of the richest land in the 
world; w^hich can be restored to use by drainage, and that, too, at a moderate 
cost, compared \vith the value of the land to be redeemed. Not only can a 
large portion of the land in the south half of Missouri bo obtained very cheap? 
but even the finely cultivated farms along the valley of the Missouri, and all 
over the rich prairies of the western, central, and northern portions of the 
State, can be purchased lower than the same kind of land and improvements in 
Illinois. No country in the wide West offers stronger inducements to the 
enterprising and industrious immigrant than Missouri. If ho is a fixrmer, our 
fruitful soil awaits the hand of the cultivator, to whom it will return '' thirt}', 
fifty, or an hundred fold." If he is a miner or mechanic, his hands shall find 
plenty of work, with liberal pay. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 75 



THE MINERALS OP MISSOURI. 



We can present no better sketch ol" the mineral wealth of Missouri than we 
find in the address of Mr. R, 8. Elliott, of St. Louis, delivered at a late date 
before the State Board of Agriculture and members of the Legislature, in the 
House of Eepresentatives, at Jefferson City. The faith of Mr. E. in the 
success of iron smelting by mineral coal is already justified by events. The 
immense establishments at Carondelet, now South St. Loui?, bear witness to 
the truth of -his prophecies j and we are satisfied that all his anticipations in 
regard to our coal resources will be realized in like manner: 

Many volumes have been uttered on the ''vast mineral wealth of Missouri." 
It has been a favorite theme. Magnificent rhapsodies have been indulged in ; 
but eulogy has not gone far, if at all, beyond the truth; for all the ordinary 
phrase of laudation is exceeded by the realit}'. 

Missouri has coal. She has the useful metals. She has salts and pigments. 
She has sands and clays for the arts. She has rocks and earths for almost 
every use of man, from the lithographic stone to the huge column of the 
temple. 

It is true that this vast wealth is mostly dormant; but let us not regret the 
fact. It is better for future generations, and as well, perhaps, for the present, 
that the sleep of ages is yet in a great measure unbroken. Enterprise, energy, 
and capital have an pimple field left to them, promising an ample harvest. 

Nor is it to be imputed to us in disparagement that there is so much remain- 
ing to develop and to enjoy. Time and circumstance concur in unfolding 
physical resources. The order of existence is directed by Supreme Avisdom, 
and we are neither to wonder nor complain that everything is not sooner 
wrought out. The "time for all things" must not only be served when it 
comes, but it must be waited for. 

The markets of Tyre wore supplied by Phoenician seamen with tin from 
Cornwall, and the old Romans wrought metals there ; yet the great value of 
the metallic resources of that corner of England has only been demonstrated 
within the last one hundred and fift}' years. Pits two thousand feet in depth, 
and galleries measuring scores of miles, and even extending under the sea, are 
very modern achievements. 

Three thousand years ago the expansive force of steam was known, and 
used by pagan priests in the service of their altars; yet only within a hundred 
years has the steam engine become the untiring servant of man. Papin, 
Savary, and Watt might have lived thousands of years earlier; but it was not 
80 ordered. 



10 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

The architects of Baalboc, of the Karnac, and the Pyramids, lived in the 
time appointed. So, also, did George Stephenson. To transport the ponderous 
stones of ancient temples might have overtasked the self-taught coal-miner of 
Killingworth. It was not his allotted work. But he could build a railroad; 
he could give life to the locomotive; he couhl vitalize the daily commerce of 
mankind. 

Archimedes might have toyed with the lightning as well as Franklin ; but it 
was not so to be. And Franklin might have given us the telegraph as well as 
the lightning rod, if such had been his destiny. 

Our great river rolled in solitude for ages before De Soto beheld it, or the 
pirogue of the trader floated on its bosom; and but little over half a century 
has elapsed since the steamboat first parted its waters. 

Yet the steam engine, the railroad, the locomotive, the steamboat, and the 
telegraph, all came in their appointed time; and, except the first, all within the 
last three score years and ten. We censure not past ages because they came 
no sooner. And none may justly complain of Missouri that her progress h:i8 
not been more rapid. Her people have had the wilderness to conquer ; and, in 
subduing the asperities of natui'e, they have already achieved results of 
magnitude. 

But Missouri has now reached a point in her existence when we may expect 
her progress in all other respects to be greater, and, consequentl}', her mineral 
wealth to be more extensively developed than ever before. Capital has been 
accumulated in manifold forms, including improved means of transit ; and 
events have virtually changed our geographical position, giving us advantages 
of immigration and growth not enjoj'ed in past years. 

A quarter of a century ago, to the west of the State, all was wilderness, 
even to the borders of the Pacific. Except the sparse commerce of the trap- 
pers, and the limited overland ti-ade to Mexico, civilization was unknown over 
more than a million square miles. Geography had on her maps the "great 
American desert," the unfruitful mountains, and Ihe expanse of barrenness 

beyond. 

' 'Afar throvio^h the trackless waste and solitude 
'J'1h> lone Missouri poured her turbid flood, 
Where all was primitive, unknown and vast; 
And save tlie thunder peal, the hurrlin;>: blast, 
Or tramp of herd, or savao^e man all wild 
Awoke the echoes, thej^ lor a^res past 
Had sle[)t unwoke. And Sabbath had not smiled, 
Mor bells ttieir summons given to temple uudeliled. ' ' 

On the east and north of us States were yet filling up, and had abundance of 
cheap lands to tempt the emigrant. Our resources Avere comparatively 
unknown. Our ''institutions" were distasteful to thousands of active men 
seeking western homes. The growth of the State, though rapid, was less 
rapid than that of States more auspiciously situated. 

Now, all is changed. States and Territories are organii^ed west of us, away 
to the Pacific slope. The shores of populous American commonwealths are 
laved by the far-off sea. In the golden soil of California giant enterprises 
spring up, which subdue even the Sierra Nevada, and stretch a railway across 
its heights. In the gulches of the liocky Mountains Mammon unfolds his glit- 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 77 

tering treasures, and the whilom desert is spanned by the iron tracks of com- 
merce. The Pacific Railroad of Asa Whitney, the* visionary project of 1845, is 
realized in 1868, and in a few years will belt the continent in duplicate lines. 

Missouri is no longer the border State; and as her climate, soil, and material 
resources warrant, so she is at length valued; rapidly adding to her people, 
her highways, her wealth, and her attractions. The time seems, therefore, to 
have arrived when we may expect the minerals of the State to be sought out 
with all the vigor of adequate capital, and all the aids of i^rogressive science. 

It was requisite to bide the time. In all localities, where supposed to exist, 
the precious metals are apt to be sought at once. Gold and silver inflame the 
imagination, and all obstacles of distance or hardship are overcome in their 
pursuit. But coal and iron, lead and copper, are social interests, related to 
others, and not apt to live alone. Hence the natural result, that the coal and 
the metals of Missouri should bo only partially developed until population, 
capital, and means of intercourse were duly advanced. 

Scarce half a century has elapsed since the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania 
was first taken from the mines to market, or its uses known — a mineral whose 
annual value is now fifty millions of dollars. It is not over thirty years since 
the iron ores of Pennsylvania began to be smelted in furnaces using anthracite 
coal. How greatly the people of that State have since prospered, b}' means of 
coal and iron, and how vigorously they are moving forward, is known to all 
intelligent men. 

The great coal and iron ago of Pennsjdvania began when time was ripe. 
We may fairly expect a similar experience in Missouri. Forty years ago all 
the iron of Pennsylvania was made by charcoal, as that of Missouri is now ; 
and the future progress of mineral development in Missouri is as certain as the 
past operations in Pennsylvania have been extensive and profitable. 

COAL IN MISSOURI. 

The coal field of Missouri is said, by geologists, to extend over 26,887 square 
miles — an area nearly four times the size of Massachusetts, and more than 
half the size of Xew York or Pennsylvania — breadth enough to make thirteen 
States like Delaware, or twenty like Rhode Island. This immense tract is 
estimated to average, for the entire area, five feet in thickness of workable 
coal, giving as the aggregate store a grand total of more than one hundred and 
thirty-four thousand millions of tons 1 

Stupendous figures (134,000,000,000 tons)! and difficult to grasp. But we 
get an idea of their significance by supposing the consumption to be one hun- 
dred millions of tons a year, at which enormous rate we shall have enough to 
last thirteen hundred and forty years. 

It is hard to realize the magnitude of such a bod}' of coal. The consumption 
of all kinds of coal in Pennsylvania, great as it is, does not probabl}' exceed 
(including exports to other States) twent}' millions of tons a year. We may, 
therefore, raise from our Missouri mines five times the present annual product 
of Pennsylvania, and yet have more than enough for thirteen centuries! 

These estimates of the area and amount of coal in Missouri may seem 



78 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

extravagant; but if thoy are deemed too large, wo may reduce them by three- 
fourths. We may suppose the aggregate store of workable coal to be only 
thirty-three thousand five hundred millions of tons (33,500,000,000), and yet 
we shall have enough, at a rate equal to the present yearly consumption of 
Pennsylvania, to last us for almost as long a period as the Christian religion 
has been taught. This immense coal field underlies a region of great agricul- 
tural value, where all the crops of the temperate zone are matured in perfec- 
tion ; it is a region doubly blessed, having a rich and kindly soil on the surface, 
and inestimable stores of fossil fuel beneath. In this respect our State is favored 
bej'ond Pennsylvania ; our agricultural resources are so much greater in our 
coal regions those of similar localities in that State. Pennsylvania digs her 
coal mostly from barren mountains. Missouri will raise hers from beneath the 
soil of fertile plains. 

Not only in supplying cheap fuel for the dwelling, but as securing to us a 
motive power for all purposes, and without limit, will this coal prove to be of 
incalculable value. Home and fireside comfort and productive industry are 
alike to be promoted by its agenc3^ 

Before the day of the steam engine, men relied for the propulsion of 
machiner}" on muscular power, on water power, or the power of the fitful winds ; 
the first inadequate to large work, the second only existing in particular locali- 
ties, and the last too capricious for any factory that requires also much manual 
service. Woolen or cotton mills without the steam engine would be dependent 
on water courses, and however inconvenient the locations, the matter of 
motive power would be imperative. 

But the steam engine frees us from dependence on either muscle or water- 
fall or wind to put our machinerj' in motion. A factory may be established or 
a factory town built up in any locality where labor, raw materials, and ready 
transportation come together; but always better if cheap fuel be there also. 
And we accordingly find that factories and factory towns grow into existence 
Avhere circumstances thus concur. 

The numerous towns and cities which, within a score of years, have sprung 
xip in Ohio, in Indiana, and in many parts of Illinois, on the railroads and 
rivers, where supplies of coal are accessible, are apt examples of this operation 
of cause and effect ; and of the increase of population in those States, within 
a few years, a large share has been due to the growth of towns caused hy the 
increase of manufacturing industry. 

The history of Missouri will present similar facts. Our people will not be 
content to continue importers of nearly all manufactured articles, particularly 
of those for which we have the raw materials. It is safe to say that the day is 
not distant when large manufacturing and trading populations will be gathered 
in towns and cities, on the lines of our railroads, in all parts of our wide-spread 
coal region. 

Not for home consumption only, but also for distant markets, will our manu- 
facturing industry be exerted. To the south and southwest of us labor will 
not for many years be so abundant and diversified as to supply the domestic 
consumption of fabricated articles. Missouri will, in time, be a strong com- 
petitor in supplying those regions, where the heat and moisture, which bring 



THE FUTUKE GREAT CITY. 79 

to perfection sugar and cotton, are unpropitious to general manufacturing 
industry. 

Away in the recesses of the Eocky Mountains, where but a lustrum since 
the solitary trapper or the roaming Indian was the only human form, the 
miner is now burrowing the everlasting hills, and the patient gold-washer pans 
out the sands of the laughing waters. Towns and cities of no mean preten- 
sions are scattered through the late wilderness. Even where irrigation is a 
necessit}' of climate, agriculture appropriates the soil, confident that, while the 
acequia absorbs a portion of labor, the full bounty of the harvest is thereby 
secured. The millions of people who will soon be settled in the mountain 
ranges will be consumers of manufactured articles in great variet}' and amount, 
and a part of their supplies, at least, will be furnished by Missouri. 

Centers of art, skill, industry, and production within our borders, will year 
by year increase and multiply; and a population aggregating hundreds of 
thousands, with all the wants of civilized life, will soon be clustered in Mis- 
souri towns. 

To suppose that those results are not in the future, is to suppose that causes 
elsewhere producing certain effects are to bo inoperative in Missouri. It is to 
suppose that we alone, of all the American world, are to remain at rest. 

On the contrary, Missouri feels new currents of life in every member of her 
giant frame. Her people, increasing at the rate of two hundred thousand a 
year, cannot long depend on distant factories for almost every implement and 
utensil of daily use. 

Our soil and climate are not held in vain. Intelligent cultivators have 
already shown their capabilities, and will not pause in the career of progress 
in all branches of industry. And it is impossible ihat our coal shall be so 
neglected as not to yield the results, in stimulating industry and promoting the 
increase of wealth, that we may believe the Creator intended when our vast 
supplies were placed where they are. 

THE METALS OF MISSOURI — IRON. 

In greater or less abundance, the metallic resources of Missouri are diffused 
over an area of more than twenty thousand square miles. In this vast domain 
there are hundreds of localities giving such promise as to justify enterprise 
in searching out their ti'easures; and there are man}- spots of unrivaled 
richness. 

Iron, the most essential of all, and which enters into the uses of the cabin 
or the palace, is the leading metal of Missouri. Though yielding in past years 
to lead, in the values produced, it will yet in the future surpass all the other 
metallic products of the State. 

The iron mines of Missouri not onlj' contain ores in unexampled quantities, 
but their ores are even more remarkable for quality than abundance. It is a 
fact, as gratifying as it is peculiar, that all the more valuable ores of iron 
known in the world are found in ]\[issouri, and of purity not excelled. 

In regard to the quantity of our iron ores, it is idle to submit figures. They 
are simply inexhaustible. 



80 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

The Iron Mountains and Pilot Knob are known as the grandest iron features 
of the continent. But even leaving these wonderful masses of metal entirely 
out of view, Missouri has mines of iron to last not only herself, but the whole 
Union, for many generations. So grandly do the Mountain and the Knob 
loom up, that the lesser objects are almost overlooked ; yet, in any other State 
or country, they would be held in very high estimation. They are only small 
in comparison with the two greatest mines of the world. And it is a fact 
worthy of note, that all the principal iron deposits of Missouri are alike in con- 
taining the richest and purest varieties of ores ever known. There are now 
fieven furnaces in the State smelting iron ores with charcoal. The iron pro- 
duced is of superior excellence, and for some purposes unequaled. 

Owing to the richness and purity of Missouri ores, charcoal furnaces in the 
State have yielded from eighteen to twenty tons of pig metal a day, for weeks 
in succession. This yield has never been equaled by any other charcoal fur- 
naces in any other part of the world. 

Employment and support are given, directly and indirect!}^, by the furnaces 
already in existence, to a very considerable population. If their products 
were wrought up here at home, as they ought to be, into all the various forms 
assumed by the iron before it comes to actual use by the consumer, the number 
of people supported by this interest, working only the products of our present 
furnaces, would be indefinitely multiplied. 

The production of iron is but begun in Missouri. Only a few years ago the 
Mountain and the Knob were but geological curiosities. It is only a short 
time since the}' have been reached by railroad, or since another railroad has 
been built near to the Moselle and the Meramec works -, and of this In-ief 
period four years were the fevered season of tumult and war. 

A beginning is now only being made in smelting our iron ores with mineral 
coal. As the germ in the acorn is to the oak of centuries, so are the timid 
essay's in this new industry to the operations and results, alike stupendous, 
which the early future will witness. 

Heretofore, dependent on charcoal, the production of iron in Missouri has 
been limited, because but a limited supply of that fuel was attainable. But 
hereafter, using mineral coal, there need be no limit to production. 

The experiment of reducing Missouri ores with mineral coal is entirel}' suc- 
cessful. In Indiana, ores from Missouri, smelted with Indiana coal, yield iron 
of excellent quality, either for the foundry or forge. Equal success is expected 
at Carondelet and other localities, with Illinois coal. 

On the subject of reducing our ores with western mineral coal, there is not 
the shadow of a doubt in the minds of practical iron men. But only those 
who know what developments of other industries have attended the making of 
iron with mineral coal, in other parts of the world, can appreciate the signifi- 
cance of the steps now being taken, and the important results to follow. 

Coal and iron are of far more value to England than all the gold of Australia 
is to that colony. The annual value of coal and iron, in Pennsylvania, is much 
greater than of gold in Ciilifornia. And whether we have gold mines in Mis- 
Bouri is a question of little consequence; for bo long as we have our iron ores. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 81 

with coal accessible in like unlimited quantities, we may command the gold of 
others. 

When John Perry built the first iron furnace beyond Potosi ; Avhen Samuel 
Massey penetrated the wilderness, and placed hi^ furnace and forge at the 
magnificent fountain of the Meramec ; when Chouteau, Harrison & Yalle 
erected furnaces at the Iron Mountain, to utilize the geological wondei*; when 
Bogy and his associates ascended to the crown of Pilot Knob, to seize its rich 
ores for the fires at its base; when all these pioneers of iron were each pur- 
suing his separate enterprise, the Mississippi Valley was being prepared, by 
added populations and multiplied improvements, for the day when the unmeas- 
ured iron resources of Missouri should be adequately valued. That day is now 
dawning. We trust soon to enjoy the full splendor of its risen sun. But that 
it should have come at all to the present generation, is due to the coui'agoous 
men who first put their means and energies into the production of iron, and 
demonstrated the peculiar excellence of our ores ; whose productive industry 
invaded the sublimity of nature and changed our geological curiosities to 
sources of wealth. For the analysis of the chemist, in test of our ores, they 
have substituted the potent assay of the charcoal furnace, yielding twentj' 
tons per diem. All honor, therefore, to the pioneers of iron in Missouri ! 

Likewise, all honor to the men who have carried through our railroads, 
reaching to some of our great iron mines, and to the neighborhood of others. 
Hei'oes in a campaign requiring courage and constancy, their works are monu- 
ments for all time. 

The South Pacific railroad, ultimately to run for three hundred miles 
over metalliferous formations, passes near the iron works established by Mr. 
Masse}', and now conducted by Mr. James, and also by the Moselle works of 
Messrs. Brown & Co. It also runs within short distances of many deposits of 
iron not yet worked, but regarded as of much value, and from which the ores 
may bo advantageously carried to furnaces in St. Louis, or to meet mineral 
coal at Franklin or other points, where river or rail may bring it. 

The Ii'on Mountain Eailroad runs to the two greatest iron mines of the 
world, providing cheap carriage for their stores of wealth, in any quantities 
that present or future wants may require. No other railroad, in any country, 
extends to natural objects at once so grand and so valuable. It touches in one 
group the Elba and L)anemora of the western hemisphere. 

Establishments in Cincinnati and Pittsburg, which, but a short time ago, 
trusted to supply themselves with ores from Lake Superior, now acknowledge 
that their only safe dependence is Missouri. 

The reduction of our iron ores by mineral coal is a maternal industry, and 
others will be born of it. In a short time we shall not be content to produce 
only iron, but we shall convert the products of our furnaces into steel ; and in 
addition to ten thousand other uses of this product, it is not unreasonable to 
assume that in a few ^'cars our railroads will be laid with steel instead of iron 
rails. To some persons it may seem an extravagant assumption that we shall 
have steel railroads. But who can set limits to progress? To forbid advance- 
ment were as idle as the command of King Canute to the sea. Improvement 
and advance are constant. It is but fifty years since there have been railroada 



82 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

of an>' kind for the tread of ihc locomotive, or the locomotive to tread them. 
It is only forty years in next October since the first locomotive proj)elled itself 
on a railroad in America. A prediction twenty years ago that we should 
achieve what has been acciJmplished would have been much more extravagant 
than a prediction now tJiat in a few years there will be none but steel rails laid 
on American roads; and that for thousands of other uses steel will be substi- 
tuted for iron. In England experiments indicate that steel will outlast iron 
rails indefinitely; and they are being manufactured largely. 

Well organized works will produce steel in large quantities at a cost of 
probably not more than forty per cent, over the cost of iron. As capital 
increases, this increase in the cost of the better article will be but a trifling 
consideration. 

But what a magnificent future for the iron interest of Missouri will open as 
we shall go on to reduce our ores by the million tons, using the exhaustless 
mineral coal of Illinois and Missouri, and employing all the most improved 
advanced processes to attain the utmost perfection in the products of ores, 
which are themselves of unrivaled richness and purity I 

Imagination can hardly paint in colors too gay this probable future. The 
change from charcoal to mineral coal in reducing the ores of our State 
means a product of good qualit}', and so cheap as to hold the market; and the 
result seems inevitable that the center of the iron ti'ade of this great valley 
must be Missouri. The magnitude of that trade in coming years can only be 
measured by those who can measure the future development of other industries 
in the Mississippi Yalley and west of us to the ocean. 

St. Louis will wear the iron crown of the continent. She will forge links of 
steel to bind her tributaiy realms. Her iron works will be a noted part of the 
brilliant successes which are in the early future to adorn the history of a city, 
whose taxable property is already equal to one-third of the whole value of the 
State. Commerce, naturally hers, but in past j^ears diverted by inimical 
agencies North, and impaired by public calamities South, will be restored with 
added millions. The public voice demands of Congress that the great inclined 
plane from St. Paul, as well as from Sioux City, to the Gulf, shall be relieved 
of obstructions, and made to afford a cheap outlet to the sea. Large regions 
to the north and northwest, brought to production by energy and labor uncon- 
scious of impediments, are to find their emporium in our metropolis. Capital, 
adverse to us, has been eager to span the continent through passes where 
winter is supreme; but the elements are omnipotent; and the railroad to the 
Pacific, which snow will never obstruct, is in the end to bring us the commerce 
of the Indies on rails made from the ores of Missouri. 

LEAD. 

Throughout the metalliferous region of Missouri (20,000 square miles in 
extent) the ores of the useful metals, particularly of lead, are found; in some 
localities not in quantity to reward mining enterprise, but in many others in 
such abtindance as to invite exploitation on the most liberal scale. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 83 

This extent of metallic area is due to tbe geological formation of a large 
portion of the southern half of the State. The magnesian limestones of the 
lower Silurian system are the principal rocks of this region. They are lead- 
hearing rocks, and deposits are ibund, more or less rich, where these rocks 
prevail. 

In some considerable districts, the limestones are covered by sandstones and 
other formations, in which ores of any kind are rarely found. In other dis- 
tricts, the metalliferous rocks are on or near the surface, and ores are abun- 
dant, especiall}' of lead. These rocks have been so slightly disturbed, since 
their creation, by upheaval or subsidence, that where they do not appear on the 
surface it is in general not difficult to judge how far thej^ are beneath ; and in 
I)ut few if any parts of the region spoken of, do they lie too deep to be I'oached 
by the minor. 

It is not believed that there is in any other part of the world ^o large an 
area of lead-bearing rocks, so uniforml}' disposed, so regular in occurrence, so 
easily identified, and on a scale so grand. 

Sulphuret of lead, or galena, is the principal ore. It occurs in horizontal 
deposits; in "^gash veins;" in modes composed of both these; in vugs and 
pockets, and also in lodes or true veins. The greatest product has been from 
the horizontal deposits and gash veins; but in several places lodes or true 
veins have been worked which are believed to be inexhaustible. In the 
southern part of Franklin countj' there are several lodes in the permanence 
and value of which the utmost confidence is reposed, not only by professional 
geologists, but also by the practical miners. 

Lead has been a product of Missouri fj-om an earl^' period. Her mines have 
been known since the day of John Law, under whose auspices adventurers 
came from France to secure the fortunes promised in the ^'Mississippi scheme." 
Mining and smelting have for. many j-ears employed a large force of men, and 
the exports of lead product have brought large aggregate returns. The pro- 
duction goes on quietly', but stcadil}', in many parts of the metallic region, and 
it might be indefinitely increased. 

Our lead deposits are also exercising, indirectly, an influence in favor of 
agricultural and horticultural progress. Observing men, first attracted to Mis- 
souri by her mineral fame, learn by inspection the value of her soil and 
climate foj' fruit culture, as well as for general farming. Some become resi- 
dents, to sow and to reap, to grow live stock, or to plant orchards and vine- 
yards ; and those who do not themselves settle among us become vouchers to 
others. Many, like the spies of Canaan, carry home with them bunches of 
grapes to show the fatness of the land. 

Some of our own people, too, first tempted to the lead regions b}' the seduc- 
tive mineral, may be expected to engage in the cultui'e of vines and fruits on 
the surface, while the pit and gallery penetrate to the metallic treasures 
beneath. By analysis of the soils. Professor Swallow has showm that millions 
of acres in the lead regions of Missouri have the elements to nourish the vine. 
The same regions are also the home of the peach, which, since the first settle- 
ment of the country, has in some localities never failed, except iii 1864, when 
the temperature wont down to 23 degrees below zero. 



84 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

Fortunate, indeed, is Missouri in possessing her millions of acres, where, in 
addition to the usual farm products, the delicious peach is a certain crop ; 
where the apple and the pear excel in size and flavor; where the grape jdelds 
a juice, not only for wine of the highest order, but with properties to furnish* 
b}-" distillation, brandies of better quality than the imported article ; and 
where the farmer may have his grains and fruits on the surface and his mineral 
riches beneath. And more, fortunate will she be when her lead interests shall 
bo fully developed; and when her bills, liUe so many already in the lead 
regions of Washington and Jetferson counties, shall be tinted with the carmine 
of the peach and the purple of the grape; and when her convivial boards shall 
be supplied with those innocent but exhilai-ating beverages for the production 
of which nature has provided the soil and the climate. 

COPPER. 

The discover}' of native copper, in veins, on the fihores of Lake Superioi', 
depreciated other localities where only the ores of copper are found. It was 
supposed that to take the native metal from the mines must be vastly more 
profitable than to dig the ores. This was a mistake; first, because the products 
of native copper veins must be smelted, as well as the ores of copper; and, 
second, because mines bearing copper ores are worked at less cost, as a general 
rule, than mines of native element. 

But pei'sons not informed in regard to the nature of mineral veins, easily 
believed that mines of ores could not be so valuable as mines of metal, and 
capital was not so ready to seek veins of ore as those of native copper. Con- 
sequently, no large expenditures, like those required to develop the Lake 
Superior mines, have been applied to the copper '' prospects" of Missouri. 
With few exceptions, the citizens of the State have paid no attention to the 
subject; and those who have adventured in the mines have done so at a loss, 
from deficiency of mining knowledge as well as capital. 

It is, however, true that if there be any lodes or true veins of copper in 
Missouri, of strength sufficient to warrant exploitation, they will prove to be 
of greater value than the lodes of native copper for which the Lake Superior 
district has become celebrated; not only because we have a milder climate and 
greater facilities for surface operations, but also because the ores can be worked 
to more advantage. There is less blasting required in our veins; no costly 
underground work to cut up the ores, as with the "masses" of native copper, 
and less expense in dressing the ores when brought to the surface. 

But, whether we have a single copper vein in Missouri worth working, is 
onl}' a matter of faith and hope. In all declamation on the mineral resources 
of Missouri, copper is a topic ; and it is a popular assumption that the State is 
"rich in copper." But the fact is only probable, and has not yet been proved. 

We cannot, therefore, say of this important metal, as wo may of iron and lead 
that it has not only done the State much service in export values, brt has more 
or less aided the advance of agriculture and commerce. No appreciable service 
to the farms or the railroads has yet been rendered by copper in Missouri ; nor 
has it been sensibly ielt in the commerce or manufactures of the State. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 85 

Copper ores have been mined in many localities, and many thousands of 
dollars' worth of smelted copper has been sent to market from Missouri, The 
ores, like our ores of iron and lead, have been remarkable for purit}-. ISio 
deleterious substances have interfered with their reduction in the furnace. By 
rude processes metal has been produced direct from the ore that came within 
five per cent, of absolute purity. But no copper mine has yet been opened in 
Missouri, as a copper mine must be opened, in order to be successful. 

Yet those who are best informed in regard to copper mines elsewhere, and 
who have studied most carefully the metallic geology of Missouri, have strong 
faith in the existence of lodes or true veins of co^^per. They know, too, that 
all the practical miners from Cornwall who have ever wrought in our copper 
mines have uniformly recognized the evidences of true veins, and entertained 
a firm belief in their value. 

Actual workings, however — the only reliable test — have only proved that we 
have copper " prospects " worthy of exploration, and that efforts to properly 
examine them ought to be made — not by companies gotten up for mere stock 
speculations, but by associations to work in good faith, and that will go duwn 
at least fifty fathoms on some of our veins, which, on the surface, are styled 
by the Cornish miners the ''backs of Champion lodes." It would seem that a 
source of vrealth, not only possible, but in a high degree probable, should not 
be neglected whoa the cost of a single grand "dinner" would suffice to explore 
a mine. 

An opinion was advanced, some fifteen years ago, and is held by those who 
have given much attention to the subject, that many of our most valued iron 
MINES are also, probably, coppek mines on a grand scale. It is supposed 
that the millions of tons of oxides and hydrates of iron, constituting the rich 
ores above the water level, and whose value for iron production is beyond 
computation, are only masses of "gossan" on the "backs" of copper lodes; 
the "chapeau de fer" of the French, and the "iron hat" of the German minor; 
and that the lodes or veins extend downward indefinitely. This opinion or 
theory has been deduced from facts and expei"ience in copper mines of Missouri, 
already partially opened. 

If this theory be correct, the iron hills at the head of the Meraraec, at Salem, 
near Stanton, and in many other localities, are not only iron mines of great 
value on the surface, but are lodes or true veins of copper below, and will some 
day yield enormous wealth. The Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob, and Shepherd 
Mountain are similar formations, and are supposed to be as worthy of admira- 
tion for their copper as for their iron ores. 

It is like a vagary of enthusiasm to regard our great iron deposits as also 
mines of oopper. Credence will be slowly given to the suggestion. But our 
geological systems, though like, are not identical with, any others; and if it 
be true that we have exhaustless lodes of copper, "backed" by unrivaled 
mines of iron, the Creator has been as generous in metals south of the Missouri 
river as in the priceless deposits of coal underlying the fertile soil in the 
northern half of the State; and wo may expect that the future of our copper 
interest, like the well-assured future of iron, will be magnificent. 



86 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

We may expect that copper will concentrato large capitals in numerous 
localities; will employ large numbers of miners; will sustain a large popula- 
tion in auxiliaiy pursuits ; and will promote consumption, in large quantities, 
of the products of the soil. Commerce will throb in unison with these pulsa- 
tions of other interests. 

OTHER MINERALS, ETC. 

Tin ores have recently become an object of attention in Missouri. This 
metal is not — like iron, lead, and copper — generally diifusod throughout the 
globe. Two localities, Cornwall and the Malayan Islands, furnish nearly the 
whole supply of the world. Should our State be proved to possess the ores of 
tin in workable quantities, they will be of great value, not only for home 
supply of this metal, which enters into so many uses, but also for export. The 
ores are said to exist in large quantities in a region of the State where the 
older rocks come to the surface. The geological conditions do not forbid the 
hope that the enterprising citizens who are now engaged in developing the 
veins may be successful. 

Cobalt and nickel may in time become important exports, to be used in the 
arts at home. The demand for the former is not very large, but the latter is 
day by day entering into additional uses. These metals are found at Mine la 
Motte, in a mineral district of peculiar geological features, and the mode of 
their occurrence suggests a continued supplj'. In the same region gold is 
reported to have been discovered in limited quantities, but the opinion is not 
prevalent that Missouri is likely to become a gold-producing State. It is 
generally believed that to procure all the gold she needs it is only necessary to 
develop her other interests. 

Silver is associated with some of the ores of lead, but has not been found in 
sufficient quantities to pay for separation. Zinc exists in numerous localities, 
and will, in many, pay for working. Manganese is known in several mines, 
and will be of value in other arts as well as in converting iron into steel. 

Natural paints are abundant, of several varieties, and are already objects of 
commerce. Barytes, until of late regarded as of no practical value, is now an 
article of manufacture and export. The sands for glass and the clays for fire- 
brick and crucibles, as well as for pottery, are not only of rare quantity, but 
are in active demand. Our porcelain clay is suited for the finest wares. 

But all other mineral interests, however important in detail, or large in their 
aggregate, are subordinate in value to the coal, the iron, the load, and possibly 
the copper, zinc, and tin of the State. The first of these is the motive power 
which carries forward other industries ; the others are the chief metals in the 
service of mankind. A commonwealth possessing these minerals in abund- 
ance, or only the first three of them, is entitled to rank as one of the leading 
mineral districts of the globe — and such is Missouri; our own Missouii, which, 
at the Paris Exposition, presented an array of the useful minerals, equal, if not 
superior, to the display of any other American State. 

Thus, imperfectly and feebly, but without boast or exaggeration, a candid 
review has been presented of the mineral wealth of the State. No argument 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 87 

is needed to establish that if we prosecute the development of those interests, 
all others, agricultural, mechanical, and commercial, must advance with equal 
step. 

By her legislation, Missouri invites the immigrant. Her press and her 
active men second the invitation. Her railroads, her schools, her churches, and 
her social life give it value. 

Peace reigns; law presides; industry, with busy hands, creates wealth ; in- 
ventive genius multiplies the productive powers. Commerce takes our pro- 
ducts and brings us the merchandise of all climes. Science and literature 
erect their temples in our magnificent domain. 

To the banquet that nature has spread and art has garnished, we bid the 
coming thousands welcome. 



IRON FURNACES AND MILLS IN MISSOURI, THEIR CAPITAL AND CAPACITY OF 

PRODUCTION. 

Notwithstanding the immense store of mineral deposits in Missouri, art and 
industry have done comparatively little in rendering these mines of wealth 
serviceable to the people of the country. The following statement of facts, as 
given by one of our principal iron merchants, will show what is being done in 
Missouri in the practical development of the iron interest : 

St. Louis, May 7, 1870. 

L. U. Reavis, Esq, : — Below is a list of the furnaces and mills in our State, all of which, 
with the exception of the rail mill ahout being erected at Carondelet, are or will be in full 
blast by June next. The rail mill should be completed and finished by December next. 
The estimate of the working capital of the several establishments is my own, and may 
not be entirely correct: 

CHARCOAL FURNACKS. 

Furnaces. Capital. Capacity, Tons. 

Pilot Knob 2 $1,000,000 12',000 

Iron Mountain.; 2 1,000,000 12,000 

Irondale 1 300,000 7,000 

Meramec 1 300,000 G,000 

Scotia 1 250,000 7,000 

Moselle 1 250,000 6,000 



Total 8 $3,100,000 50,000 

STONE -COAL AND COKK FURNACES. 

Furnaces. Capital. Capacitj', Tons. 

Kingsland ., 2 $250,000 25,000 

Lewis 2 250,000 25,000 

South St. Louis 2 250,000 25,000 

Carondelet 1 150,000 8,000 

Total 7 $900,000 83,000 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



ROLLING MILLS. 



Capital. Capacity, Tons. 

Laclede Rolling Mills $500,000 10,000 

Uail Mill, Caroudelet 500,000 30,000 

Total $1,000,000 40,000 

RECAPITULATION . 

15 furnaces Capital $4,000,000 Capacity, 133.000 tons. 

Mills " 1,000,000 " 40,003 " 

VALUE OF PRODUCTS. 

133,000 tons pig iron, at $33 $4,055,000 

10,000 tons merchant iron, at $85 850,000 

Annual product, value $5,505,000 

I have no means of arriving at the number of men directly emploj'ed in the several 
establishments named, but believe that 2,000 would be a low estimate. 

Yours truly, 

JULES VALLE. 

Since tho above note was written, Mr. Yalle having stated that the Kingshxnd 
Iron Company was merged in the Vulcan Iron Works, to make railroad iron, 
and that the capital invested was $1,000,000, and the capacity 40,000 tons of rails, 
this change will therefore increase his previous statement $250,000 in capital 
and 10,000 tons of rails in capacity — leaving the capital of the fifteen furnaces 
at $4,000,000, and increasing the capital of the mills to $1,250,000, and tho 
capacity of the mills to 50,000 tons, and the value of rails and merchant iron, 
at $85, to $4,250,000 ; and the value of pig iron being $4,655,000, the total value 
of pig iron, railroad and merchant iron will therefore amount to $8,905,000. 

In addition to the above iron works, Mr. J. Gilman Chouteau has recently 
organized a company for the manufacture of steel. The company to start 
with a capital of $50,000, and be increased to $1,000,000. 

Quite a business is also being done in tho manufacture of zinc in this State. 
There are two large companies in St. Louis, doing an extensive business. 



THE FUTUKE GREAT CITY. 89 



MISSOURI AS A WINE-PRODUCING STATE. 



BY L. D. MORSE, M. D., 

PKESIDENT MISSISSirPI VALLEY GRAPE GROWERS' ASSOCIATION. 



It is a little over twenty years since grape culture was commenced as a 
business in Missouri, since which it has steadily increased, and rapidly bo 
within the latter half of the period. During the last five years the increase 
has been at the rate of about 300 acres per year. Within the period last 
named, several companies have been formed for producing wine on a large 
scale. The Cliff Cave Wine Company, in the south part of St. Louis county, 
has about twenty-five acres of vines, sold a large quantity of grapes last year, 
and made 3,000 gallons of wine. The Augusta Wine Company, of St. Charles 
county, has 22,775 vines, and made last year 8,000 gallons of wine. The 
Bluffton Wine Company, of Montgomery county, has 59,834 vines, and made 
last year from the portion in bearing 13,490 gallons of wine. The Missouri 
Smelting and Mineral Land Company, of Stantun, Franklin county, is engaged 
in grape growing as a portion of its business, and has about 70 acres of vines 
planted, nearly all of which are in bearing this year. 

In addition to the foregoing, we have the American Wine Company, of St. 
Louis, started several years earlier. It does not depend upon raising grapes 
for wine, but buys largely, and claims to have made last year over 100,000 
gallons of still wines, and a half million bottles of champagne. 

The vineyards of the town of Hermann yielded last year over 150,000 gallons 
of. wine, and about 85,500 pounds of grapes sold, the total value of both being 
estimated at 8157,557. 

In the Eeport of the Department of Agriculture for 1868, partial reports from 
nineteen counties are given, the average footing to 1,508. Statistics obtained 
last year by the Mississippi Yalley Grape Growers' Association, entirely 
reliable so far as they go, indicate that there are about 3,000 acres of vineyards 
in the State, and the entire value of the grape product of the State this year will 
not be less than 03,000,000. 

SUPERIORITY OF MISSOURI GRAPES AND WINES. 

It is not 80 much, however, the number of acres planted during the last few 
years, as it is the more or less favorable results from those in bearing, and 
the comparative qualit}^ of the fruit and wines produced therefrom, which tend 
to determine the question of superiority of our State above most others. 

What little statistical information has been gathered thus far on this subject, 
and the very imperfect statements and incorrect figures given in the various 
F 



90 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

reports, including that of the U. S. Agricultural Department, make it impos- 
sible to give reliable comparisons ; but even this last-named report shows that 
the average produced per acre in Ohio was 3,475 lbs. grapes, or 320 gallons 
wine; it was in New York 4,571 lbs. grapes, or 416 gallons wine; and in 
Missouri 6,900 lbs. grapes, or 483 1-3 gallons wine. A more reliable proof of 
the superiority of Missouri's grapes over all others, wo find by comparing the 
strength of the must by Oechsle's must-scale, which always comes out in favor 
of Mit^souri, even against the most celebrated wine localities of the Union. 
This is due to climate and soil. Rev. Chas. Peabody, who has given much 
attention to the investigation of this subject, says: "The two important 
natural conditions demanded by the grape are climate and soil. Given these 
two, all the rest will eventually follow from the application of the skilled 
industry of the vine-dresser. In this portion of the Yalley of the Mississippi, 
we find these two elementary conditions, climate and soil, existing together. 
That the soil and climate of Missouri and the adjacent parts of other States, 
especially those on its eastern and western boundaries (Illinois and Kansas), 
are eminently adapted to the growth of the grape, is a point too well estab- 
lished to need discussion here. The fact is well know^n and universally 
acknowledged throughout the entire district, and perhaps I may venture to 
add, throughout the United States. Compared with other sections of the 
United States (at least all those east of the Eocky Mountains), so far as their 
capabilities have been tested, our advantages for the production of wine are 
certainly superior." 

"Wo have not the space to show by the Isothermal lines, ascertained by years 
of actual observation, that our mean temperature during the various seasons 
comes nearest to those most celebrated places in France where the grape is 
known to succeed, and must confine ourselves to but few data, of which the 
following tables, extracted from essays read before the Mississippi Yalley 
Grape Growers' Association, will afford a ready comparison : 

p, Au^. Sept. Oct. Av'^ 

deg. deg. deg. deg. 

Cleveland 70.3 64.0 51.3 61.68 

Cincinnati 74.2 66.0 53.2 64.47 

ISt. Louis 76.5 68.7 55.4 06.86 

For the highest development of the wine properties of the grape a mean 
temperature of no less than 65° Fahrenheit is demanded during the season of 
ripening. In the tables above alluded to we find the following : 

( Average of , 

April. May July, Aug. 

and June. and Sept. Six months, 

deg. in. deg. in. deg. in. 

Kelly's Island, O., 1867 57.3 3.18 72.0 1.54 64.6 2.36 

St. Louis, Mo 63.7 3.95 75.1 1.05 69.4 2.80 

Marseilles, France «3.4 72.1 67.7 

Besides the high temperature, a diminished rain fall during the same season 
is essential to the perfection of the grape. Dr. Stayman, of Leavenworth, 
Kansas, in an able discussion of these meteorological influences, comparing the 
averages of Illinois, Missouri and Kansas with those of New York, New 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 91 

Jersey and Pennsylvania, foi* 1867, finds a difference of 4.14° more heat and 
6.45 inches less rain for the months of July, August and September, and for 
the whole period 7.20° more heat and 10.38 inches less rain in favor of tbc 
Western States. 

AVhcrover Missouri wines have been tested, in comparison with those of 
other States, either at home or abroad, they have almost invariabi}'" taken the 
highest rank. At the meeting of the American Pomological Society, held in 
St. Louis in September, 1867, there was a large exhibition of American wines, 
including twenty varieties, from various States. The committee on Catawba 
wines, using a scale of 100 to designate degrees of excellence, rated the best 
Missouri sample at 95, and other samples from this State at 90, 84, &c. The 
highest from any other State was Illinois, 88; the best from Ohio was rated at 
70. These were still wines. The sparkling Catawba of the American Wine 
Company, of St. Louis, were rated one and two degrees higher than samples 
from the celebrated Longworth Wine House, of Cincinnati. The committee 
was composed of two gentlemen from Ohio and one from Washington. 

At the Paris Exposition, the American Wine Company's champagne was 
awarded honorable mention, and diploma sent them on account of its fine flavor, 
although the French jurors remarked it had too much of the fruity taste. The 
German jurors, accustomed to wines of high bouquet and flavor, were very 
much pleased with the American wines which possessed these qualities. The 
American committee, consisting of the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, Alexander 
Thompson, William J. Flagg, and Patrick Barry, said: "From what com- 
parison we have been able to make between the bettor samples of American 
wines, on exhibition at the Paris Exposition, with foreign wines of similar 
character, as well as from the experience of many European wine-tasters, we 
have formed a higher estimate of our own ability to produce good wines than 
we had heretofore." Wines which have since repeatedly been sent to Germany 
from Missoui'i have been highly spoken of, and were pronounced very superior 
wines by the best connoisseurs. It is also a notable fact that the trade in 
native wines has assumed such proportions in St. Louis, that oven her 
importers of foreign wines, who have heretofore strongly disfavored any 
others, feel now compelled to bu}" and keep always on hand the Catawba, 
Concord, and Norton's Virginia. 

There are several other varieties that are destined to take high rank, but 
have not yet been made in sufficiently large quantities to become well known. 
There are about seventy-five varieties of native grapes in cultivation and on 
trial in the State. About one-third of this number may be considered as well 
tested, and more or less successful. 

Our Concord wine is becoming more and more popular, and should take the 
place of imported clarets. It suits the uncultivated taste better than either 
claret or Catawba. The Norton's Virginia, as it becomes better known, is 
more and more esteemed for its valuable tonic and astringent qualities. As a 
medicinal wine, it is not excelled probably by any wine, native or imported. 
Catawba has generally been considered too acid by those unaccustomed to it, 
but it makes an exceedingly wholesome and palatable summer drink, and is 
especially admired in the form of Catawba cobblers. When made into spark- 



92 • THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

lino- wine or champagne, it has a very agreeable bouquet, and is preferred by 
those who become accustomed to it to the best imported champagne. It is 
purer, contains less alcohol, and is rapidly superseding them. 

WINE CONDUCIVE TO HEALTH AND TEMPERANCE. 

Taking into consideration the fact that the manufacture of wine is yet in 
its infancy in this country, the above results indicate that it is rapidly attain- 
ing a prominent place among the leading industrial pursuits, and materially 
aiding the cause of tempei*ance by decreasing the consumption of distilled 
and fortified liquors. On this point an intelligent writer says : 

''Of the good or evil effects of drinking pure wine, Americans have small 
means of judging. The dogmas of total abstinence have been built upon facts 
existing in two countries where pure wine is an almost unknown thing — upon 
British and American facts. Not in France, not in Spain, or Portugal, or Italy, 
or Switzerland, or South Germany, are gathered the awful statistics of the 
temperance lecturer; but from Britain, from America, and other countries 
where a kind of necessity, or at least a controlling fatality, has led to the 
using as a beverage what in grape-growing countries is hardly known save 
as medicine. 

"The advocates of abstinence, having made out their case against distilled 
spirits, demand judgment against wine also. Having shown that drinking 
whisky or rum tends in a dangerous degree to make men drunkards, they 
jump to the conclusion that wine drinking must also tend in a like degree to 
the same calamitous result. By such reasoners it is assumed : 

"First, that alcohol as found in distilled spirits, and alcohol as found in 
wine that has not been distilled, exists in both cases under identically the 
same conditions, and has on the drinker the same effects. 

" Secondly, that foreign wines which are iisually consumed in America and 
Britain are the same as what the people of the countries which produce them 
drink at home, and the same as what we should drink in case we grew our 
own wines at home. 

" But distilled and nndistilled alcohol exist under very different conditions 
and have very different effects. And to reason from Port, Sherry, and Madeira, 
and other liquors that come to us in ships, to the wines that will spring from 
our own soil, if our vine culture be blessed, is by no means admissible. Simple 
alcohol is not a drink at all. It is never taken without a large admixture of 
water, and usually of other substances. Brandy, whisky and rum contain 
nearly as much water as they do of alcohol, even before being diluted for 
drinking ; while wine is in its nature a very delicate combination of various 
ingredients, with all of which we are not yet fully acquainted. Alcoholic 
drinks, , then, being essentially compounds either naturally or artificial^' 
formed, they cannot be fairly judged without considering the properties of the 
substances which compose them, the proportions they bear to each other, and 
the manner in which they combine. And to assert that the alcohol which 
condenses in the worm of the still from the vapor of boiling wine is the very 
same thing to the drinker of it — to his stomach, brain and nerves — that it 



THE FUTUKE GREAT CITY. 93 

would have been if it had remained united with all those other constituents^ 
with the sugar, acids, tannin, resin, salts and ethers which were its companions 
in the vine sap, were elaborated with it in the leaf and ripened with it in the 
grape, is to say what requires the strongest proof to sustain it. But no such 
proof exists, while the contrary can be abundantly shown." 

As conducive to health, our light wines possess a special value deserving of 
more general appreciation. It has been said, with too much truth, that we are 
a nation of dyspe^jtics. For the cause of the frequency of dyspepsia, we may 
rationally look to the habit of eating fast, bolting the food in a half-masticated 
condition, drinking too largely of water and other liquids, the too common 
use of salt meat, particularly salt fat pork among the hard-working classes, 
kc. There is a largo portion of our population who, although not confirmed 
dyspeptics, arc yet persons of feeble digestive powers — a condition sometimes 
brought upon themselves by their own improprieties or bad habits, and quite 
as often inherited from parents, for the progeny of such people are sure to 
inherit the "family failing." Now it generally happens that this class of 
people are under the necessity of accomplishing more work, either bodily or 
mental, than they are physically capable of doing without loss of vigor. Their 
powers of assimilation are unequal to the task of appropriating of each meal 
BuflScient to meet the interstitial destruction or necessary out-goings of the 
system. Hence, they are alwaj's overworked, and live a life of fatigue. Their 
muscles are soft and flabby, and their vessels deficient in tonicity. They are 
liable to disease from various causes j the circulation in the extreme vessels 
being weak, they are unable to resist the effects of cold, and are hence liable 
to congestions. They have no power to resist malaria or contagious diseases. 
Under a feeling of relaxation and fatigue, they often resort to distilled spirits 
to their injury. 

It is certain that the habitual daily use of a small allowance of such a 
stimulus as our pure wines afford, would bestow upon such persons the nervous 
energy necessary to enable them to digest more food — to economize the waste 
of the sj'stem — to perform the duties of life with more ease and comfort, and 
would make them more useful members of society instead of the mere drones 
they often are and must continue to be under a total abstinence regimen. It 
would also better enable them to resist disease, which is an important con- 
sideration in malarious districts. When moderately taken with a regular 
meal, the small amount of stimulus contained in the light wines is very little 
felt J no unnatural appetite is created for such stimulus, but rather a feeling of 
satiety is produced, digestion is aided, the wants of the system are better 
supplied, and there is less inclination or craving for stimulus between meals. 
This would be particularly the case with the class referred to, who need " wine 
for the stomach's sake." As wine would enable the body to appropriate more 
food and gain strength, the feeling of fatigue, with the instinctive ci'aving for 
stimulus, would be removed. 

While people continue to drink for the sake of drinking, by all means give 
them the least dangerous article. Let it be more abundant and cheaper than 
the more fiery and maddening compounds. 



94 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 



THE GREAT BRIDGE iVOW BEING BUILT OYER THE 
MISSISSIPPI, AT ST. LOUIS. 



"What a glorious future may we not anticipate for our own St. Louis 1 Why, sir, I 
ima<?ine I can see the Oriental traveler, on his brief excursiou round the world, pause 
upon the central span of the Eads Bridge and, amid a prodigality of gigantic achievements 
c.f science and progressive eflbrt, still read in the distant future developments of equal or 
sreater magnitude^ He stands upon a structure which rests upon the deep foundations of 
the earth itself, and presents in its strength and massive grandeur, in its piers of granite 
and arches of steel, fit emblems of our moral as well as physical structures, the steadfost- 
ness and wisdom of our institutions and the solidity of our industries. Beneath him flows 
the great Father of Waters, bearing on its bosom the argosies of an empire, while on 
every hand the evidences of triumphant art command his attention. A city of 1,000,000 
inhabitants lies before him, and it may be on one of its ascending steppes the capitol of 
tlie nation rears its peerless dome. Strange wonders, these, of Time's begetting, and of 
jirogressive revolutions! The providential mystery which hid this continent from the 
knowledge of the civilized world for thousands of years, begins to clear away under the 
sunshine of fticts which surrounds him, and the grand revelation is made that it was 
reserved for a period when mankind should aim to be fraternal, and the victories of peace 
should be acknowledged the crowning glories of ambition.— B. R. Bonner. 

Each fige and each nation produces its great works in some phase of human 
progress. The early Jews built the tower of Babel ; Egypt had the Pyramids 
and Catacombs ; Greece her Parthenon and unequaled temples of worship ; 
Rome had her Coliseum; the middle ages, their walled cities. But modern 
civilization, passing beyond the age of selfishness, ambition, and idolatry, gives 
to mankind magnificent structures of greater use as the triumphs of the 
genius of the race. 

The greatest work of mechanical art that the world has yet beheld is the 
Crystal Palace of the nineteenth century. It combines in one lovely master- 
piece of art, and one glow of associated beauty, the highest civilization and 
progress of man. 

The leading feature of the present age is the strife for commercial dominion. 
In this department of civilization is enlisted more capital, talent, and men 
than in any other. All the rapid strides of the race are made in its interest — 
whether in the achievement of art, of science, or of genius. The wild billows 
of the Atlantic have been defied by steam and electricity, and the two great 
continents of kindred shores united by these subtle agents ; and now with one 
steady grand march does civilization, carried by the tides of men, continue its 
joui'ney to the west — to the high mountains, and the broad and calmer waters 
of the wide Pacific ocean. With these great movements come the master- 
works of mechanics and arts. 

Since the invention of the steam engine, the railway system may bo regarded 
as the greatest aid to civilization the arts have produced, on account of the rapid 
intercommunion of men and ideas, and the exchange of products. But a great 
and valuable railway system without bridges to cross the inland streams would 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 95 

bo an impossibility ; henco the remarkable development of genius and art, and 
the concentration of capital, to construct in ample proportions these master- 
fabrics for commercial use. Nor are they constructed as the easy work com- 
mon to the ordinary routine of life. But rather are they, who project great 
works in advance of the resistless moving times, compelled to contend against 
a vast array of ignorance, prejudice, and selfishness. Yes, there is one thing 
common in the history of all great undertakings that have to break a new 
path : they have to combat against frivolous objections and contempt, and, 
oven in the best cases, against the unsympathetic attitude of the masses. At 
the same time it must be confessed that these opposing elements have never 
failed to pass into their opposites, as soon as perseverance, talent and business 
energy on the part of individuals have, in spite of them, realized wl at has 
once been acknowledged as possible and necessary. In all such cases contempt 
has been exchanged for admiration, doubt has been compelled to give wa}- ; and 
the more rapidly and victoriously the enterprise, which was once so strongly 
doubted or even assailed, progresses, the more surprisingly does the number of 
those increase, who would fain have it believed that they stood as prophets of 
good by its cradle. Such was the case, to confine our examples to American 
soil, with the Erie canal, with the leveling of Chicago, with the Pacific 
railroads, and finally with that immense structure which, before the face of St. 
Louis, is soon destined to span the Father of Waters. This one circumstance 
might be sufiicient to secure the work its proper place among the great feats 
of humanity in modern times. But such is no longer necessary as an argu- 
ment ; the structure has its days of combat behind it — already its creators can 
point with silent finger to the actual progress which it has made, and to the 
point which it has at this moment attained, and allow that which has already 
been accomplished to speak for that which is yet to be accomplished. And it 
speaks irresistibly; it tells us not only that the completion of a work which in 
its line has no peer, is certain, but it tells us also that, as in the case of the 
Pacific railways, the goal will be reached many a day sooner than the original 
calculations and pre-suppositions led us to expect. 

That the trade of the central portion of the Mississippi Yalley, which centers 
in St. Louis, and advances every year with such gigantic strides, was not 
sufficiently provided for by the present ari-angemonts for transportation across 
the broad stream which separates Missouri and Illinois, or to speak more cor- 
rectly, the true East and "West of the United States, has been known and seen 
by every one for many years. 

Passing from this general allusion to the struggle which enterprise is com- 
pelled to wage against established condition, we at once submit a general 
statement of the great Bridge under consideration. 

The plan of the bridge, as it is now being built, is quite original in many 
particulars, and when completed will, in all probability, be superior to any 
structure of the kind in the world. So great and important is the structure, 
that a complete description of its main work will not be uninteresting to the 
general reader ; for the work itself has its lesson as well as its value, and 
therefore its manner of building, as well as its stylo of structure, will be of 
great public interest. 



96 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

THE PIERS OF THE BRIDGE. 

The locality at the river chosen for the bridge is a scene of the strangest and 
most exciting kind. Along the banks are extensive workshops, heaps of hewn 
stone, beams, iron-work and cement barrels, forges, offices and sheds for sup- 
plies, derricks and other arrangements for hoisting, and pile-drivers, whose 
construction alone is a sort of miracle, and finally the lofty bridge-scaffoldings, 
composed of thousands of beams, arms, and parts of iron machines over the 
shore piers, which are in progress of construction inside of strong caissons. 
In the midst of the river, 500 feet from either shore, and 520 feet distant from 
each other, we see the same scaffoldings, only more complicated and more 
lofty, and notwithstanding their colossal size affording an almost elegant 
spectacle in their wonderful symmetry. Structures of all kinds, and palisades 
that go down a hundred feet into the river, intended to break the current of 
the river, and more particularly the floating ice in winter, surround these 
wonderful constructions that rise from the bosom of the river. 

Like the building yards on shore, and even more than these, they are 
crowded with a perfect bee-hive of engineers and workmen, whose self- 
conscious ability is infinitely increased by the enormous mechanical powers 
which stand here ready for use at every step in the form of floating derricks, 
steam engines, pumps and hydraulic jacks. These are the building yards of the 
two piers. Under these scaffoldings and iron constructions the heavy masses 
of stone which are intended to carry and hold the three arches of the bridge, 
mostly counterparts of the ponderous structures of the ancient Egyj)tians, are 
put together. But how much easier was the task of those ancients, who piled 
up their edifices in the familiar element of atmospheric air ! In our case they 
had to penetrate into the deeps, but not, like the miner, into the solid element 
of the earth ; they had to break through a volume of water thirty feet deep, 
and, after arriving at the bottom, to burrow through the sixty and ninety-feet 
thick layers of treacherous, ever-changing Mississippi sand, in order to rest 
the basis of the piers upon the eternal ribs of the earth itself, on the rocks of 
primeval worlds. 

The investigations of years in regard to the undercurrent of the Mississippi 
have shown that no river in the world changes its sand-bed so rapidly and to 
such an extent; and more particularly the soundings that were made near St. 
Louis showed that at times, when the river overflows, its sand-layers may be 
carried away to the depth of forty feet, and, under extraordinary circum- 
stances, scoured down to the very rock itself. Thus was demonstrated the 
necessity of laying the basis of the piers upon the rock itself, which under one 
pier is ninety feet, under the other one hundred and twenty feet under the 
ordinary high-water line. Inasmuch, on the other hand, as the law of Congress, 
made in the interest of navigation, prescribes that the height of the arches 
shall be fifty feet above the city directrix, or ordinary high-water line, of the 
river, it results that the entire height of the piers must reach 165 and 194 feet 
respectively. 

The system by which the base is laid upon the rock is that of sinking. On 
colossal iron caissons (open below and resting upon the sand itself), which, 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 97 

with the increasing weight of the piers built on top of thom^ and which, as the 
sand under them is removed to the upper world, sink deeper and deeper, this 
lowering is effected. In order, however, to render the caissons — which, in spite 
of the thickness of their iron walls and their solid construction, might not be 
able to withstand the pressure of the growing masonry and the masses of sand 
that press against their side walls — capable of resistance, the atmosphere, by 
means of enormous air-pumps, is compressed in them in such a manner that 
their power of resistance can be increased to meet any exigency. When the 
caisson or air-chamber, as it is called with propriety, strikes upon the rock 
(that is, when the sand-pumps working it have removed the gigantic layers of 
sand through which it had to penetrate, and when the pier that rests on the 
caisson is separated only by the air-chamber from the rock), then it (the 
caisson) is filled with concrete, which completes the indissoluble connection 
between pier and rock. "When the last particle of compressed air in the air- 
chamber has given place to this indestructible compound of cement and stone, 
all that remains to be done is to fill up in a similar manner the perpendicular 
shafts which communicate between the air-chamber and the upper world, and 
the whole structure of the pier in solid compactness incorporated with the 
rock far below, stands aloft, bathing high above its colossal and yet elegant 
form in the rays of the sun, out of the floods of the river. 

IN THE AIR-CHAMBER. 

During the last few months a visit to one of the air-chambers under the piers 
was one of the principal attractions that St. Louis had to show to visitors. 
The further the piers themselves advanced, that is, the deeper the air-chamber 
sank with its burden, the greater was the compression of the air necessary to 
render them capable of supporting the immense weight which increased with 
every inch of sinking, and all the harder was the work inside the caisson. 
When the air-chamber of the east pier, on the 28th of February last, reached 
the depth of ninety-five feet under the bed of the river, with a weight of 20,000 
tons upon it, the workman who removed the last of the sand had to work under 
the pressure of three atmospheres ; and it was not possible so entirely to avoid 
all kinds of mischances as has hitherto been the case without changing the 
workmen as frequently as possible. In order to afford a more complete under- 
standing of the matter, we must remark that the introduction of the compressed 
air into the caisson can be measured with such wonderful accuracy that the 
sinking can be regulated to an inch. This sinking is accurately calculated 
according to the quantity of the sand removed from beneath the air-chamber, 
which is nine feet high. The sand itself is removed by means of powerful 
pumps which pump up the sand in great streams after it has been softened and 
brought in the condition of drifting sand by means of water supplied from a 
hose, and then driven back to the river from whose depths it has been taken. 
As we have already said, a number of shafts passing vertically down the pier 
effect a chimney kind of a communication between the air-chamber and the 
upper world. In the central and widest of these was a winding stair-case, which 
was lengthened as the pier reached downward, and was used for people to pass 



98 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

up and down. The smaller shafts, which also passed down the pier perpendicu- 
larly, contained the pipes which serve to introduce the compressed air, the hose 
for moistening the sand, the pump which removes it, machines for the intro- 
duction of materials, and a telegraphic arrangement by means of which the 
workmen from beneath, " where all things hideous are," are able to correspond 
ever}' moment with " those that breathe in the rosy light." 

The entrance into the caisson itself was effected by means of an air-lock at the 
bottom of the winding staircase — a lock which, like the caisson, is constructed 
of thick iron, and is an integral part of it. As soon as the chamber was 
entered, which was capable of holding six or eight persons, the current of 
air admitted rushed round with such impetuosity that even strong organiza- 
tions entering this kingdom of darkness and night for the first time could not 
disembarrass themselves of a certain feeling of uneasiness. The iron door that 
led to the outer world pressed firmer against its frame by the force of the air 
streaming in, than could be done by a lock or any other contrivance. The 
stop-cock through which the air streamed in was not closed until the atmos- 
phere in the air-lock had reached the same density as that in the main part of 
the caisson. As soon as this is the case the door leading into the caisson opened 
of itself, and we were ready to enter this subterraneous workshop, where even 
the clearest voice loses its sound, and where, deep under the echo of human 
speech, yea, deep under the water's undermost depths, busy workmen pave the 
way for the sinking pier. 

For a while one felt perfectly comfortable in this underworld — a world 
such as no mythology and no superstition ever dreamed of. The transition, 
indeed, became apparent by pain in the ears, bleeding at the nose, or a feeling 
of suffocation ; but these inconveniences and seeming dangers, inevitable upon 
such a visit to hell, are insignificant in comparison with the interest which it 
offers. It was undertaken by hundreds and hundreds of visitors, including 
many ladies, and none returned from that depth without carrying along with 
them one of the most remarkable reminiscences of their whole life. Shrouded 
in a mantle of vapor, labor the workmen there, loosening the sandj dim flicker 
the flames of the lamps, and the air had such a strange density and moisture 
that one wandered about almost as if he were in a dream. For a short time all 
this was extremely interesting and delightful, but it was not long before the wish 
to escape again from this strange situation gained the upper hand over the 
charm which it exercised. Gladly did the visitor, after a quarter of an hour 
re-enter the air-lock, with an unfeigned feeling of relief, to watch the air begin, 
ning to escape from this chamber. At once the door behind him leading from 
the caisson closed by the denser air, and fastened as firmly as if there was a 
mountain behind it. The compressed element escapes whistling from the air. 
lock ; the air within is more and more equalized with the air without ; a few 
minutes, and they are of equal density; then the door^ no longer prossep 
against its frame by the dense atmosphere, opens to the winding stairs, and the 
visitor coming forth takes a long breath, and, to use Schiller's Avords, once 
more " greets the heavenly light " which shines from far above down the shaft. 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 99 



THE BRIDGE WHEN COMPLETED. 



At present both the piers may be considered as finished. The east pier has 
been resting with its caisson on the rock since the 28th of February, and the 
filling of the chambers was then rapidly accomplished. Its western companion 
had then only three feet more to sink, and this it might have done in a very 
short time, but the supply of granite failed to arrive in time, and so inter- 
rupted the building itself. It is laid down in the plan that the portion of the 
piers above water, and exposed to the action of the air, shall be built of the 
strongest granite, whilst the parts extending from the rock to a certain point 
under the lowest water shall bo built from limestone blocks from Grafton 
quarry, in Illinois. When the expected granite arrived, the construction of 
the piers above the surface of the water made rapid progress, and in a few 
weeks they will have reached the prescribed height of fifty feet above the 
water level. Their total height, or, if you prefer it, their total depth, will 
then, as stated above, be 194 and 165 feet, respectively — the east pier being the 
highest, because the rock on the Illinois side of the river lies deeper than it 
does on the Missouri side. The hexagonal foundation of the piers is 82 feet in 
length, their weight amounts to from 28,000 to 33,000 tons. No less solid and 
massive is the construction of the abutments. In their case, likewise, they 
had to go down to the rocks. Upon the Missouri side of the river this 
presented little diflaculty, which, however, will be made up for on the Illinois 
side, on account of the nature of the American Bottom. On this side the 
works are already advancing, inside a gigantic coffei*-dam, towards the surface. 
On the other side they are just being begun. "We know, however, that in the 
character of this work a beginning is the beginning of a certain, and particu- 
lai'ly of an early, termination. It will therefore not be long before the Illinois 
abutment will rapidly follow its vis-a-vis and the two piers. 

These four piers will form the substructure which now approaches its 
termination with rapid strides. Upon the masses thereof, which are put 
together to last for an eternity, the bridge itself will rest, which is destined to 
facilitate the proudest inland commerce over the proudest of streams. They 
will carry three arches, which, as was already remarked, will measure — those 
extending from the abutments to the piers 500 foot each, and the span of the 
principal arch between the two piers 520 feet. The possibility of erecting such 
long spans, considering the enormous weight which they will have to bear, was 
at first strongly doubted, and still more strongly contested. Captain Ead.s, 
however, sustained on the one side by his calculations, on the other by the 
example of the arched bridge at Kulinburg, in Holland, which spans the Leek 
with a span of 500 feet, as well as by the plans of the English bridge-engineer, 
Telford, which were made in the beginning of this centurj", was enabled to 
invalidate and set aside all these objections. Cast-steel is selected as the 
material of these arches. Each of them will bo double, that is to say, will 
consist of two concentric arches 12 feet apart, and joined together by a network 
of the most massive steel braces. Such double arches will be stretched four 
in each span, running parallel w^ith each other from pier to pier. Upon their 



100 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

iron necks will be laid the real bridge in two stories. The lower of these 
stories is intended for the railways ; the upper belongs to vehicles and foot 
passengers. Being fifty feet wide, both will afford space enough to satisfy the 
demands of the liveliest trafiSc. Meanwhile, underneath, the largest steamers, 
even when the water is at its highest, may dash along; and while over them 
the East and West exchange their riches, they may, unimpeded, pei-forra the 
exchange between the North and the South. St. Louis, however, will not only 
have the boldest arch bridge in the world, but it will also have the first struc- 
ture of the kind built of steel, the true noble metal of our times. Let us leave 
to Europe her Krupp and her arsenal full of cast-steel cannon — the one steel 
bridge over the Mississippi casts into the shade all that equivocal wealth of the 
old world. 

It remains to say a few words in regard to the shore structures, or more 
properly to the approaches to the bridge. The street leading directly to the 
bridge — Washington avenue — is one of the broadest and finest in St. Louis. 
Like the whole of the St. Louis shore, it slopes rapidly when it approaches the 
river. It will be sufficient, therefore, to prolong the bridge, which rises about 
fifty feet above the shore, a comparatively short distance — three blocks — 10^9 
feet into the city, in order that its level may equal that of Washington avenue. 
A viaduct of five arches, of twenty-seven feet span each, under which the traffic 
of the cross streets below may be carried on unobstructedly, will form the 
continuation of the bridge, and of course will be of the same height and 
breadth. At the end of it the high level road will pass into Washinton avenue, 
which still continues to rise, whereas the low level road, with its railways, will 
run into a tunnel, 4,800 feet in length, which passes under a large portion of 
the city, and terminates at the spot where the great St. Louis Central Eailroad 
Depot will be erected — where at present the Pacific railroad crosses Eleventh 
street. The tunnel will be fifteen feet wide and seventeen feet high. By 
means of soundings and borings it has been ascertained that there are only 
layers of clay to be tunneled through, and therefore the latter portion of the 
enterprise will offer no particular difficulties. With the approach to the bridge 
over the flat marshy ground on the Illinois shore, the company itself has nothing 
whatever to do. Dykes and trestles, branching oft^ according to the conve- 
nience of the different railroad companies to north, south, or east, will complete 
the connection with the bridge. The upper carriage waj' will be carried out 
upon solid constructions as far as Fourth street in East St. Louis, from which 
point the Missouri traffic will divide up in all directions. 

And, now, what will this gigantic work — measuring from the Illinois abut- 
ment to Washington avenue, in St, Louis, 2,230 feet — cost ? We put down the 
estimates for the different parts, as well as for the whole structure : 

Superstructure (piers and abutments) $1,540,080 00 

Superstructure (arches and roads for trafHc) 1,4G0,418 30 

Approaches 520,397 24 

Tunnel 410,477 65 

Expropriations 539,900 00 

Kailroad ~... 25,GS0 00 

Total expense of the bridge $4,496,953 (» 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 101 

Of this capital, three millions (§1,200,000 in St. Louis, the rest in New 
York) have already been subscribed, and the outlay up to the present moment 
is §1,700,000. At the same time the financial management has hitherto been 
so successful, and the different contracts made so advantageously, that the 
progress of the bridge will certainly not be interrupted by any pecuniary 
difficulties. No less certain is it that advantage will be taken of the work as 
soon as it is completed. The data which have been made and collected with 
extreme care in regard to this point by one of the directors, Dr. William 
Taussig — who must be considered one of the most energetic promoters and 
patrons of the great national enterprise — lead to the following results : 

At least thirteen railroads will have their terminus on the Illinois shore of 
the Mississippi in East St. Louis. And at least eleven railways will soon leave 
St. Louis itself, cutting the State of Missouri in all directions. Of only three 
of all these have we any statistical reports, and these relate only to the freight 
traffic of the year 1867. They show that during that year 767,400 tons of 
freight were carried over these lines. The most modest estimate of the traffic 
of twelve railways, which will be the total number finished and iu operation 
before the completion of the bridge, cannot place it below a million of tons. 
The contracts already made with the different railway companies, and those 
still to be negotiated, secure to the Bridge Company an average tariff of 65 
cents a ton, which would yield a yearly revenue from freight alone of St'50,500. 
The remaining traffic (horse-ears, coal carts, farmers' wagons, and other freight 
conveyances, along with cattle transport), according to present estimates, may 
be reckoned at §129,647, passengers on the railways §112,000, so that altogether 
the total revenue would amount to §892,147. From this sum §40,000 must be 
subtracted for annual incidental expenses, and there will remain over a sum 
equal to eight and a half per cent, on a capital of ten millions. 

It is expected that the bridge will be inaugurated iu the last days of next 
j-ear. However, if we may draw a conclusion from the past favors of fortune 
upon the work, the latter part of the summer of 1871 will see the first train of 
cars pass over the steel and granite structures of this unrivaled bridge. Then 
it will not only be a source of pride to every Missourian in particular and every 
American in general, but its massive and yet magnificently elegant forms will 
be a source of astonishment to the ordinary spectator and of admiring appre- 
ciation to the professional engineer. Then likewise will be brilliantly verified 
the words with which the architect closed the report which he laid before the 
company in the spring of 1868, and which are as follows : 

" It is safe in stating that rarely has an enterprise been inaugurated which 
appeals so strongly to the support of our citizens of all classes, which promises 
BO much to add to the welfare and prosperity of the city, and which offers such 
a safe and remunerative return for the labor and capital invested in it," 

At the present time the west pier is sunk to the rock, and the air-chambers 
of both piers, and the shafts in them, have been filled up with concrete ; and 
the masonry has been carried up to about six feet above low-water lines. The 
caisson for the east abutment is being built at Carondolot, and will be launched 
about August 10th of this year. 



102 THE PUTTJIIE GREAT CITY. 

The west abutment has also been built up to about twelve feet above low 
water, and by February 1st, of next year, ail the naasonry of the piers will be 
ready for the superstructure. The contract for the superstructure has been 
awarded to the Kingston Bridge Company, of Pittsburg, Penn., and that com- 
pany is now working in the most urgent manner to fill their contract, which 
obliges them to furnish and raise the superstructure of the bridge within seven- 
teen months. A notable feature of this contract consists in the fact that it has 
been let at pi'ices below those estimated by the Chief Engineer, 

This constitutes a brief outline description of the great St. Louis Eailway 
and Passenger Bridge, which is now in process of construction. 

A very brief classification of the approved bridges of the day, and an 
allusion to specimens of the various kinds, will, perhaps, enable the casual 
reader to receive a better impression of the magnitude of the St. Louis bridge. 
There are four prominent styles of bridges, which are generally adopted by 
the engineering profession when they aim to erect something that will endure 
to remote generations — the tubular, the suspension, the lattice, and the arch — 
all constructed of iron, in one or more of its forms. The tubular, invented by 
Robert Stephenson, although materially aided by Fairbairn, will alwaj's, we 
think, be regarded as one of the great ideas of the nineteenth century. It is a 
straight, hollow, rectangular tube. The Britannia bridge is the grandest 
specimen ; for its longest span, or reach, between supports, is 459 feet. But 
long as it is, it was lifted in one piece 100 feet high, to its present position. 
The Victoria bridge has no span of equal length, nor was it elevated in the 
same way. 

The suspension, in its crude forms, is of ancient date. It is found in all 
lands, but until later years it has never received the indorsement of engineers 
as the reliable support of railway trains ; and in this respect it can hardly be 
said to have thoroughly disarmed sound criticism, when we claim we are build- 
ing something that is truly permanent. It possesses some qualities that will 
always render it popular. It can be constructed more easily in many positions. 
A much greater span can be obtained than by any other known method, and 
the cost is comparatively less. Perhaps this last feature can be understood 
when we remember that the Niagara bridge, with a span of 821 feet, was built 
for less than the yearly interest on the sum expended on the Britannia bridge. 
Its general construction is well known. In Europe, the prominent specimens 
are the Menai, by Telford, with a span of 580 feet, and the Freyburg, in Switzer- 
land, with a span of 870 feet. In this country, Ellet and Eoebling have indenti- 
fied themselves with the Wheeling, Niagara, Cincinnati, and other bridges. 
Ellet ct)nstructod the Wheeling bridge, 1,000 feet span, which failed to with- 
stand the winds; yet Mr. Ellet was a great man. Mr. Eoebling may be 
regarded as the great exponent of the suspension bridge in this country. His 
reputation may well bo envied ; for while the great engineers of Europe were 
declaring it was impossible, he went on with the Niagara bridge; and now, 
after eighteen years' successful usage, it has caused the engineers of the old 
world to reverse their theories. 

He built the Cincinnati bridge, and if, in future times, the suspension shall 



THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 103 

have become recognized as a thoroughly safe, permanent structure for railway- 
trains, to Mr. Roebling, more than any other, will the credit belong. 

The lattice bridge has been and is now a very popular type of bridge. The 
name will readily convoy a correct impression of its general construction. In 
some respects it is preferable to the tubular. It is loss costly, and is less rigid, 
which some claim to be an advantage. As fine a specimen of this kind, per- 
haps, as can be seen anywhere, is at Cologne, over the Ehine. Its longest 
reach is 330 feet. It is, however, liable to oscillation. 

But yielding everything to the suspension and the lattice that can with reason 
be claimed for them, it is questionable whether they possess the elements of 
perpetuity equally with the arch, "We know arch bridges have endured for 
centuries — we do not yet know how long a railway suspension, tubular, or 
lattice bridge will continue. 

The first cast-iron arch bridge was built in 1779, with a span of 100 feet. 
Many other iron arch bridges have been successfully constructed. They have 
always been highly esteemed for their strength and durability. The great 
drawback, perhaps, has been an inability to construct them with a span so 
wide as to compare favorably with those of other styles. In England, the 
largest is the Southwark, with a span of 240 feet, and a rise of 24 feet. Note 
this fact, and i-emember the length of the Britannia, 459 feet, and the length of 
the Cologne, 330 feet, and then the importance of the St. Louis bridge, with its 
span of 520 feet, will appear. 

Its form is as enduring as any tested by the experience of ages. Its size 
surpasses that of any^ when we consider the true comparison, the length of 
span. Its material, cast-steel, is the best in the world, ranking Avith wrouo-ht- 
iron in the ratio of two to one. 

The importance of the St. Louis bridge is still further increased when we 
consider its foundations, their depth, their mode of construction, and the 
attendant difficulties. 

Other engineers of great eminence have proposed the erection of bridges of 
greater span than this, but it rarely occurs that the location and conditions 
of the case justify, as in this one, such bold grasp of mind on the part of the 
engineer, with the no less accompaniment of a proper manifestation of public 
spirit on the part of capitalists to carry out his design. 

Mr. Latrobe, a noted engineer of Baltimore, has expressed his oj^inion upon 
the construction of a bridge at St. Louis. lie favored the use of piers higher 
than those of the present plan, requiring a stationary engine to draw the cars 
from either side to the center in passing over. He also advocated the use of 
spans 400 and 500 feet in length. 

That modern engineers are anticipating something altogether superior to the 
past achievements, the following remarks of Mr. Eoebling are evidence. He 
says : " It was left to modern engineering, by the application of the principle 
of suspension, and by the use of wrought-iron, to solve the problem of span- 
ning large rivers without intermediate supports. Cast and wrought-iron 
arches, of 100 feet and more, have been quite successful. Nor can it be said 
the limit of arching has been reached. Timber arches of much greater span 



104 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

have stood for j'ears, and have rendered good service in this country as well as 
on the continent of Europe. It is worthy of notice, however, and to be cited 
as a curious professional circumstance, that the best form of material, so pro- 
fusely applied by nature in her elaborate constructions, has never been used in 
arching, although proposed on several occasions. This form is unquestionably 
the cylindrical, combined in small sections, as is illustrated by vegetable and 
animal structures. Where strength is to be combined with lightness and ele- 
gance, nature never wastes heavy, cumbrous masses. The architects of the 
middles ages fully illustrated this by their beautiful buttresses and fljang 
arches, combinations of strength and stability, executed with the least amount 
of material. 

" The wrought-iron pipe, now manufactured of all sizes and in such great 
perfection, offers to the engineer a material for arching which can not be 
excelled. A wire cable, composed of an assemblage of wires, constitutes the 
best catenary arch for the suspension of great weights ; and, as a parallel to 
this, if the catenary is reversed, the best upright arch for the support of a 
bridge may be formed by an assemblage of wrought-iron pipes, of one and a half 
or two inches diameter or more. Arches of 1,000 feet span and more may be 
rendered practicable and safe upon this system. I venture to pi'edict that the 
two great rival systems of future bridge engineering will be the inverted and 
upright arch — the former made of wire, and the latter of pipe, both systems 
rendered stable by the assistance of lattice work, or by stays, trusses and 
girders." 

It has already been stated that the bridge to be built at St. Louis is to be 
made of cast-steel ; and in the meantime, extensive experiments have been 
going on to thoroughly test the strength of the metal, and no possible precaution 
will be neglected or effort omitted to make this bridge a complete and perfect 
success. Although not so great in length as the Yictoria bridge over the St. 
Lawrence, which is nearly two miles long, nor the bridge over the Nebudda, in 
India, which is one and a half miles long, nor the bridge from Bassein to the 
main land, which is over three miles long, yet its magnificent spans and stately 
piers place it far above these bridges in character and structure. And when 
once built it will be grander than the Colussus at Ehodes, grander than the 
Pharos at Alexandria. It will vitalize the commerce of the Mississippi Valley, 
and unite the great railway chains between 'Ng\y York and San Francisco, the 
Lakes and the Gulf. When completed, it will place the name of its builder, 
Capt. James B. Eads, with those of Telford, Smeaton, Stephenson, and other 
distinguished engineers of the world. Mr. Eads already stands prominent as 
one of the most enterprising and public-spirited citizens of St. Louis; and 
should this bridge enterprise, in which he is more prominent than an}^ other, 
prove successful, his character and reputation will become the public property 
of the country, even as the bridge itself will be. Almost proverbial for the 
invariable success attending everything he undertakes, and with a world-wide 
reputation for practical ingenuity and indomitable energy, wo hail his promi- 
nent identification with this work as an assurance of its successful completion. 
To him, and to the enlightened, public- spirited citizens who have pledged their 
capital and influence to sustain the enterprise, will justly belong the glory that 
will surely attach to the St. Louis Bridge. 



THE FUTURR QRBAT CITY. 105 



CLOSING EGOTISM. 



In submitting this pamphlet to the public, I take this opportunity of record- 
ing a personal word, which I design more particularly to be read by my fellow- 
citizens of St. Louis. 

It is well known to many that during the past three years I have, in an 
humble but earnest way, advocated the development of the material interests 
of the Mississippi Valley and of St. Louis, and, as I believe, in perfect justice 
to every part of my country. 

In the prosecution of my work, I have given to the public, including this one 
five pamphlets, containing arguments and statibtics in vindication ot the objects 
for which I have labored. In all the little work which I have done, I have 
had no personal interest to sei've, no ambition to satisfy, no pecuniary gain 
which I expected to realize. " I have no wife or children, good or bad, to 
provide for — a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how 
they play their parts, which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as 
from a common theater or scene." 

Born and reared in the Valley of the Mississippi, and in a country and 
government, in extent and kind, unequaled in the history of mankind, and 
sharing a little of that human nature which is instinctively and keenly alive to 
every step toward individual and national greatness, has been the motive by 
which, with a tenacious zeal, I have been actuated in my efforts. 

I, therefore, in presenting this pamphlet, which I hope will be read with 
some interest by this people, submit it as the last I shall prepare and publish 
upon the material interests of the country and St. Louis. Notwithstanding our 
next census will reveal an array of new facts infinitely greater than those 
with which I have had to deal, I have done ray distinctive work in this field of 
labor. Others, with more gifted pens, will turn the new facts to the best 
account for our national progress. There is a higher field of work than that 
which the material plan affords ; and though I shall not cease to do all that I 
can in assisting to remove the National Capital to the Mississippi Valley, I shall 
in the meantime look forward to a new field of action, wherein the great 
problems of the world are to be solved, and man's highest life on earth 
attained. 

" What profit has a man, if he gains the whole world and loses his own 
soul ?" 

The National Capital will bo a poor achievement to the people of the great 
Valley States, unless protected by one Constitution, over-arching one conti- 



106 THE FUTURE GREAT CITY. 

nental Eepublic, under whose power and protection succeeding generations of 
men will pass on in universal relationship, as — 

' ' Nations step into rank 

At time's loud bugle sound.'" 

To save the Republic of our fathers in all its parts — to purify and perfect it 
by the struggles through which it passes — to make it wiser and better — to give 
it a grander and loftier niissioa among the nations of the earth, and to per- 
petuate its existence to the remotest time, is the chief end of this and future 
generations. And, in so declaring, I have an abiding faith in the future — a 
future which will most surely bring a just and bountiful reward to the eai-nesl; 
the industrious, the frugal and righteous millions of the genei-ations yet to 
come, a complete triumph of the human race in its effort to solve the great 
problems of the world, a moral and intellectual development of our people 
commensurate with the material growth of the countrj'. In presenting this 
pamphlet to the public, as an argument in favor of an organized hope of the 
race of man as being inherent in the preconceived futur.e great city of the 
world, I have the full assurance that copies of it will pass into our libraries, 
and be read by inquisitive and earnest minds of other generations, long after 
we of this generation shall have passed on through the gates of the eternal 
world, to take our places 

'•With patriarchs, and prophets, and the blest. 
Gone up from every land to people heaven . " 

The conception of the future great city would be a vagary if we fail to 
maintain one Government and one law all over this laud we love so well. It 
is the future hope of ttie world. This is not all ; there is a royal commission 
for all to fill. Poverty still stalks abroad ; ignorance still depraves; vice still 
brutalizes, and crime still entails its miseries. There is work yet to be done, 
rules yet to be prescribed, wants to be satisfied, and wisdom to be supplied, 
and " whoso does it to the least of these, does it also unto me." 

Then let us hail the future, and hope for the royal rule of righteousness. 



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